Speaker 1: Chapter twenty three, Sasha Rolling Fuck trundled forward, crunching its
Speaker 1: way over the Texas Plains and leaving a carpet of
Speaker 1: flattened grass and broken trees in its wake. And Sasha Marian,
Speaker 1: situated in a little purple building atop one of the
Speaker 1: city's tallest spires, couldn't quite believe her eyes. In spite
Speaker 1: of its many wheels, the city didn't look like the
Speaker 1: kind of thing that should be able to move. It
Speaker 1: was as if the Empire State Building had taken up jogging.
Speaker 1: Sasha had been more or less alone since the war
Speaker 1: Council had concluded. She'd wanted to go up to the
Speaker 1: bar with Manny and Roland, since they were the only
Speaker 1: people here she even sort of knew, but their conversation
Speaker 1: had seemed a private sort of thing. At first, she
Speaker 1: thought that her hosts had made an oversight in leaving
Speaker 1: her unwatched. Surely they wouldn't let someone who had been
Speaker 1: their enemy just a few days ago wander freely through
Speaker 1: their home. But as the hours went by, it became
Speaker 1: clear that's exactly what they'd done, so Sasha explored it
Speaker 1: had been exhilarating. Actually, every inch of the city was
Speaker 1: different and strange and new to her. Across the gantries
Speaker 1: there were numerous market stalls with fresh meat and produce.
Speaker 1: At first she recognized all the foods, but the higher
Speaker 1: and further she went, the stranger everything seemed. The meat
Speaker 1: went from beef and chicken to alligator in zebra and mammoth,
Speaker 1: and eventually something Sasha thought might be from an actual dinosaur.
Speaker 1: She was sure it was all lab grown, and the
Speaker 1: produce was certainly gene modified. At one point, she came
Speaker 1: across a kiosk filled with fruit that had been tweaked
Speaker 1: to take the shape of gigantic erect penises. There were
Speaker 1: penis watermelons, penis oranges, penis apples, and even bags of
Speaker 1: tiny penis shaped grapes. She knew she should have felt disgusted.
Speaker 1: Two weeks ago, Sasha would have been horrified, but somehow
Speaker 1: she just wasn't. She felt a vague sense of unease
Speaker 1: awkwardness at the sight of so many genitals, but after
Speaker 1: all she'd seen in the Heavenly Kingdom, it didn't exactly
Speaker 1: horrify her either, How could it. The fondl boats were
Speaker 1: another matter. The sight and the strange sky's sweet smell
Speaker 1: that wafted out of the grinding, groping crowd inside it
Speaker 1: made her queasy. This is exactly as depraved as Pastor
Speaker 1: Mike said it would be, she thought. But she also thought,
Speaker 1: is this really worse than all that violence and death?
Speaker 1: Who were they hurting? The Lord? Said a shrill, small
Speaker 1: voice in the back of her mind. Why would God
Speaker 1: hate this and not the hanging of good people? Sasha wondered,
Speaker 1: Why would this make him angry but not the butchery
Speaker 1: inside that factory? You know what the Bible says, Sasha,
Speaker 1: There is no getting around that. The scriptures were clear.
Speaker 1: Well maybe they're wrong. Then maybe they've always been wrong,
Speaker 1: or maybe I read them wrong. Maybe they didn't say
Speaker 1: what I thought they said. It was odd, how freeing
Speaker 1: that thought was. She made her way past a fondle boat, and,
Speaker 1: for no reason beyond curiosity and the desire to stretch
Speaker 1: her muscles, Sasha started to climb upwards. The gantries that
Speaker 1: made up the bulk of Rolling Fox Walking Space were
Speaker 1: fairly easy for a human to traverse. They had high walls,
Speaker 1: so even the very drunk were unlikely to fall, and
Speaker 1: in spite of the city's clutter and bustle. Its designers
Speaker 1: had done a good job of making two clear lanes
Speaker 1: for foot traffic, but the gantries only gave Sasha access
Speaker 1: to a handful of the strange, glittering buildings that dotted
Speaker 1: the city's rolling superstructure, so she left them and she
Speaker 1: climbed up. It was not an easy climb. Here and
Speaker 1: there she found small sections of ladder or knotted rope
Speaker 1: to ease her passage. For the most part, though she
Speaker 1: climbed hand over hand up the criss crossed metal girders.
Speaker 1: She passed several buildings filled with people drinking and partying.
Speaker 1: Sasha didn't stop to talk. The climb was hard, but
Speaker 1: at least it allowed her to avoid awkward conversation with
Speaker 1: whatever manner of creatures lived in this place. By the
Speaker 1: time she reached the top of the spindle, Sasha's body
Speaker 1: was drenched in sweat and her arms were too sore
Speaker 1: to pull her up one more foot. She was grateful
Speaker 1: to whoever had decided to cap this spindle with a
Speaker 1: tiny purple shack, and she was even more grateful that
Speaker 1: the shack appeared unoccupied. Sasha pulled herself inside and collapsed
Speaker 1: on the floor for a while. It was all she
Speaker 1: could do to regain her breath. She wondered, in a
Speaker 1: vague sort of way, if she'd just broken into someone's home.
Speaker 1: Nobody had warned her that there would be certain places
Speaker 1: she couldn't travel here, but no one had told her
Speaker 1: much of anything at all. After she'd arrived, Sasha took
Speaker 1: stock of her surroundings. The interior of the room was plush.
Speaker 1: The walls were carpeted in thick, cushiony velvet. The floor
Speaker 1: below her seemed to be some sort of black shag.
Speaker 1: There was a framed picture on one wall. Sasha didn't
Speaker 1: recognize the artist, but it looked like a cross section
Speaker 1: drawing of a handgun with fetuses as the bullets. The
Speaker 1: sight of it made her feel a bit sick, but
Speaker 1: there was also something about the art that drew her eyes.
Speaker 1: The center of the room was a low, flat table
Speaker 1: that appeared to be made entirely of mirrored glass. There
Speaker 1: was a pile of white powder on the center of
Speaker 1: the table, along with a strange, rectangular piece of green paper.
Speaker 1: Sasha picked up the paper and stared at it. It
Speaker 1: took her a moment to realize what it was. Money
Speaker 1: said a voice from behind her. Oh, it used to
Speaker 1: be once upon a time. Sasha frose stiffened. She turned round,
Speaker 1: not sure what to expect, but with an apology already
Speaker 1: spilling out of her mouth. I'm sorry, sir, I didn't.
Speaker 1: Something in the man's smile and the relaxed slump of
Speaker 1: his shoulders made her stop talking. He stood in the
Speaker 1: doorway of the little building, just a few feet in
Speaker 1: front of her. She had no idea how he could
Speaker 1: have climbed up and in there without her hearing him.
Speaker 1: She didn't remember the man's name, but she recognized him
Speaker 1: from the war Council. Those writhing snake tattoos identified him
Speaker 1: as clearly as a name tag. I'm she trailed off.
Speaker 1: He smiled at her. There was something about his eyes
Speaker 1: that seemed off wrong. She couldn't place it. His pupils
Speaker 1: were somehow different than they should have been when he spoke,
Speaker 1: though his voice was warm and friendly. You are Sasha Maarian,
Speaker 1: the girl who was brave enough to flee her home
Speaker 1: and family for the Heavenly Kingdom, and then brave enough
Speaker 1: to leave it when she realized what it truly was.
Speaker 1: His head dipped down into a slight bow, I'm Jim Shannon.
Speaker 1: It's an hon at a eat you, Miss Marian. Jim
Speaker 1: squatted down on his haunches and dropped his arms in
Speaker 1: between his legs. It was a casual motion, but he
Speaker 1: executed it with almost mechanical precision. There was something to
Speaker 1: his movements that spoke of terrible potential energy, kinetic force
Speaker 1: just waiting to be unleashed. It's nice to meet you,
Speaker 1: she said, because what else could she say. Jim smile
Speaker 1: didn't change, but his eyes did. His pupils contracted and
Speaker 1: then changed shape from a circle to a spiraling, rounded star. No,
Speaker 1: it's not, he said. That's not a lie to each other. Eh, Sasha,
Speaker 1: I'm weird. I'll move wrong. My eyes. As he spoke,
Speaker 1: his star pupils started to spin in a hypnotic spiral.
Speaker 1: Are wrong. They don't look human. I can hear your
Speaker 1: hotbeat elevate as we speak. I can smell codazol in
Speaker 1: your brain and elevated levels of blood glucose. I can
Speaker 1: see in your eyes that me say in this has
Speaker 1: made you even more nervous. Yes, she admitted, Yes, you're right,
Speaker 1: you are me. That's perfectly normal, Miss Marian. It is
Speaker 1: not an act of weakness to admit fear quite the opposite.
Speaker 1: You feel better, now, don't you? She actually did. There
Speaker 1: was a queer sort of relief in admitting her fear
Speaker 1: and discomfort in this man thing's presence. I do feel better,
Speaker 1: she said. Why is that admitting fear is the first
Speaker 1: step to conquering it. You don't strike me as someone
Speaker 1: who wants to live in fear, miss Marian. You do
Speaker 1: strike me as someone who seeks control, strength, power over
Speaker 1: your own life. I, she sputtered, I don't. I don't know.
Speaker 1: A week ago, i'd have told you God was in
Speaker 1: control of my life. Sasha looked down at her lap,
Speaker 1: suddenly embarrassed. It wasn't very long ago, but it feels
Speaker 1: like a lifetime. It was so peaceful, just handing over control.
Speaker 1: Jim nodded and leaned his head forward a few inches.
Speaker 1: That didn't end well, though, did it. Sasha shook her head.
Speaker 1: You traveled to the heaven the Kingdom with a certain
Speaker 1: set of beliefs about the universe. Those beliefs met reality.
Speaker 1: Reality broke them into little pieces. There's no shame in that.
Speaker 1: It happens to all of us. Now you're a bit
Speaker 1: older and a few bits wiser. She looked up at him.
Speaker 1: His smile seemed somehow softer. Now she felt like opening up,
Speaker 1: confiding in this stranger. Sasha wondered if that was another
Speaker 1: aspect of his modifications, some alteration of his body chemistry
Speaker 1: and physical appearance that allowed him to seem more familiar
Speaker 1: and trustworthy to her. She opened up, anyway, I just
Speaker 1: don't know what to do now. I guess I could
Speaker 1: go home, but I don't think I was wrong in
Speaker 1: leaving home. I don't want a life in the American Federation.
Speaker 1: I know that. I just you don't know what's right,
Speaker 1: Jim finished, in a voice that was gentler than she
Speaker 1: would have guessed he was capable of sounding. She nodded
Speaker 1: as she struggled for her next words. I know I
Speaker 1: can't go back. I don't know where to go next.
Speaker 1: I don't have any money or really any useful skills,
Speaker 1: so I can't go to California or Cascadia. I doubt
Speaker 1: this place will take me, she gestured down at the
Speaker 1: rolling city below them, And even if they would, I
Speaker 1: don't really feel comfortable here either. Hm. Jim nodded and
Speaker 1: leaned back. Perhaps he said, you should weary, less about
Speaker 1: where you want to end up and more about what
Speaker 1: you want to end up doing. I don't have any options,
Speaker 1: Sasha said, fighting down a rising panic that tickled the
Speaker 1: back of her throat. I didn't even finish high school.
Speaker 1: I've spent the last two years preparing to join the Kingdom.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to do anything useful. That's where
Speaker 1: you're wrong, Jim said, in a firm voice. You lied
Speaker 1: well enough to hide your intention from your parents and
Speaker 1: am fed law enforcement. You did that for years. Sasha
Speaker 1: wanted to argue that she hadn't lied, not according to
Speaker 1: Pastor Mike's definition of the word, but she stayed silent
Speaker 1: while he spoke. You escaped from one of the most
Speaker 1: fortified botas in the world, Jim continued, And you did
Speaker 1: useful work in a medical facility. Then you helped facilitate
Speaker 1: the escape of several prisoners from the Kingdom jail. You
Speaker 1: functioned effective in a firefight and killed a trained soldier
Speaker 1: in hand to hand combat. Then you killed another man
Speaker 1: and stole a vehicle to aid your comrades in an escape.
Speaker 1: Am I missing anything? Sasha looked down again. She didn't speak.
Speaker 1: She felt bad about taking praise for murder, especially for
Speaker 1: Darrell's murder. She did, however, feel a tiny swell of
Speaker 1: pride at Jim's words. It was immediately accompanied by a
Speaker 1: flood of guilt. Killing is not something to be proud of,
Speaker 1: she said, Oh I disagree, Jim chuckled. Killing is a
Speaker 1: highly technical skill, and you've proven yourself a talented amateur.
Speaker 1: With some training and a spot of chrome, you could
Speaker 1: really be something. He trailed off. Sasha was quiet for
Speaker 1: a moment. She looked into Jim's eyes and tried to
Speaker 1: read something in them that proved a fool's Errand there
Speaker 1: was nothing in those orbs but cool confidence, And even
Speaker 1: that might be false. What did any gesture or look
Speaker 1: mean from a man who could control every aspect of
Speaker 1: his body right down to his pupils. I don't want
Speaker 1: to get better at killing, she told him. I don't
Speaker 1: want to fill my body with unnatural things. Just thinking
Speaker 1: about it makes me feel ill. And yet Jim said,
Speaker 1: what do you mean? And yet she asked, And yet
Speaker 1: that thought intrigues you too. It's no use, hadn't it.
Speaker 1: I can taste deceit. Sasha shuddered a little at that,
Speaker 1: but she couldn't deny that he was right, as much
Speaker 1: as the idea repulsed her. She'd spent too much time
Speaker 1: powerless to not crave power. I'm not looking to push
Speaker 1: you into anything, Sasha, but I would like to provide
Speaker 1: you with a unique opportunity. What do you mean, she asked.
Speaker 1: He smiled, plopped down on his butt, and swung his
Speaker 1: legs in to sit cross leg give on the shag carpet.
Speaker 1: Jim stuck a finger into the thick black fibers of
Speaker 1: the carpet and started tugging at them. It was an idle,
Speaker 1: nervous gesture, and Sasha found it oddly endearing. Part of
Speaker 1: her suspected that had been his goal. I mean that
Speaker 1: I would be willing to take you on as a project.
Speaker 1: A project, he nodded. My organization has access to skilled surgeons,
Speaker 1: military grade agmatics, and vat growing organs. I'll front the
Speaker 1: bill and I'll train you, and in return, you'll work
Speaker 1: for me forever, she asked. Jim laughed. She felt a
Speaker 1: little annoyed by that, and it must have shown on
Speaker 1: her face because he stopped Sary Sara. He said, it's
Speaker 1: just that be debt, slavery, you must not know this,
Speaker 1: but I helped kill the last country that lived on
Speaker 1: this land in that sort of thing. So how much
Speaker 1: time would I owe you, Sasha asked? Five years, he said.
Speaker 1: Sasha's heart trembled with excitement at the offer. When she
Speaker 1: thought about the way the adrenaline had coursed through her
Speaker 1: during the fight in the clinic, she wanted to say yes,
Speaker 1: But when she thought about Darrell bleeding out next to
Speaker 1: his car, the shame inside her overwhelmed everything else. Sasha
Speaker 1: knew she couldn't handle more weights like that on her conscience.
Speaker 1: I don't want to kill people, she said in a
Speaker 1: tiny voice. Shame dripped from resyllable That's fine, Jim said,
Speaker 1: his grin widening. We always need medics. You've shown an
Speaker 1: aptitude for that already. I have a feeling you'll take
Speaker 1: well to combat engineering. There's plenty for you to do
Speaker 1: without pulling a trigger. If I work for you, Sasha said,
Speaker 1: I have a feeling I won't be able to avoid
Speaker 1: pulling triggers. None entirely, Jim shrugged. But any shooting you'd
Speaker 1: do would be an immediate self defense, and you'd have
Speaker 1: the right to refuse an emissions that violate your moral code.
Speaker 1: I know that's important to you. The way he said
Speaker 1: that last bit set the hackles on her neck a rise.
Speaker 1: Is it not important to you, she asked, morality? I mean?
Speaker 1: He swung his hands out to the side, palms up
Speaker 1: in a vaguely buddick pose. When I was a young man,
Speaker 1: not much older than yourself, I knew a lot of
Speaker 1: gallant men who claimed to live by codes of honor.
Speaker 1: Such things were fashionable in the warrior culture of a
Speaker 1: Diyan empire. None of those codes stopped the men I
Speaker 1: knew from serving that great beast we called a state.
Speaker 1: When you see enough good moral men enable war crimes,
Speaker 1: you stop seeing value in the term morality. So what
Speaker 1: matters to you, Sasha asked, what do you believe in change?
Speaker 1: Miss Marian. He smiled, revealing rows of pearly white teeth,
Speaker 1: the snake tattoos on his chest and shoulders, writhed in excitement,
Speaker 1: I believe in change. I grew up in a time
Speaker 1: when the climate changed and my home became a deadly broiler.
Speaker 1: Politics changed, and democracy became a dictatorship of capital. For
Speaker 1: a time, I believed in the promises of change handed
Speaker 1: out by progressive politicians and scent of old revolutionaries, but
Speaker 1: every one of them was either co opted by the
Speaker 1: system or killed by it. He shrugged and cast his
Speaker 1: eyes down to the carpet for a while. Just a
Speaker 1: moment his mask slipped, Sasha saw a deep, yawning pit
Speaker 1: of despair in the tight lines at the edge of
Speaker 1: his lips, and the subtle twitch of muscles below his
Speaker 1: left eye. It passed, and a black velvet smile took
Speaker 1: its place. Then I met a man who showed me
Speaker 1: the way. Nothing new could grow on this continent until
Speaker 1: the weeds of the old were pulled out by the
Speaker 1: root and tossed into the compost pile of history. So
Speaker 1: he said, forget the old debates about what system should
Speaker 1: replace capitalism. Kill the state, and the seeds of a
Speaker 1: thousand new worlds will sprout on its corpse. You've seen
Speaker 1: two of those sprouts already, Sasha shook her head. If
Speaker 1: you're referring to the heavenly Kingdom, it's a nightmare. The
Speaker 1: old US can't have been worse than that, Jim shrugged.
Speaker 1: Depends on your perspective. I suppose tell miss Sasha you
Speaker 1: left the amphid the old U, say's most direct successor state.
Speaker 1: Why was that? Because it's a soulless pit, she said,
Speaker 1: the words almost leaping from her throat. Jim smiled at that.
Speaker 1: This isn't though, is it, He gestured out at the
Speaker 1: city of wheels below them. No, Sasha said, whatever else
Speaker 1: it was, rolling fuck was not soulless. Neither is the
Speaker 1: Navajo nation, Jim said, or Cascadia the black Stone Nation.
Speaker 1: Even the Mormons are up to some interesting things these days,
Speaker 1: one faction at least. So which do you believe in?
Speaker 1: Who do you fight for? He grinned again, Night the child,
Speaker 1: As I told you, I fight for change, to cast
Speaker 1: down the ossified bones of the old world and make
Speaker 1: space for the new. I owe allegiance to no national
Speaker 1: god save perhaps Lady Airis, who he smiled. A bit
Speaker 1: of smugness leached into the expression. She could see it
Speaker 1: clear as day right around his eyes. It should have
Speaker 1: repelled her more than it did. Airis was the Greek
Speaker 1: goddess of discord, back when people cared about what the
Speaker 1: Greeks believed. She set the spark that lit the Trojan wall.
Speaker 1: I know it's a bit silly reaching back to that
Speaker 1: old mythology, but I can't help myself. There's something about
Speaker 1: those old gods that calls to me. I can identify
Speaker 1: with them. He leaned in. There was an eagerness to
Speaker 1: his posture, his tone, his eyes. The snakes jerked and
Speaker 1: spun on his muscled chest and arms. I'm offering you
Speaker 1: a chance to join us on Olympus. Dear Sasha, you've
Speaker 1: spent your time in worship. It's time to embrace your
Speaker 1: own godhead, leave your antique books behind, and rewrite the
Speaker 1: world with your will. I don't know if that's what
Speaker 1: I want, Sasha said in a still small voice. She
Speaker 1: tried to ignore how much part of her ached for
Speaker 1: what he promised. The thought of killing again nauseated her
Speaker 1: as much as it excited her. But the thought of
Speaker 1: having power, the kind of power she'd seen Roland exercise,
Speaker 1: that was intoxicating. She hated how badly she'd started to
Speaker 1: want it. Well, you don't have to decide now, Jim
Speaker 1: shrugged his shoulders and gave an amiable smile. Aisle. The
Speaker 1: floor rumbled underneath them. There was a loud clattering wine
Speaker 1: as the whole structure of Rolling Fuck came to a
Speaker 1: slow stop. Jim waited for the scrunching noise to cease,
Speaker 1: and said, come and watch what we do today, then
Speaker 1: make you call Rowland. Dawn broke just as Rolling Fuck
Speaker 1: pulled to a long, slow stop by the shore of
Speaker 1: Lake Wago. The city had taken the long way around
Speaker 1: the reservoir, which had added at least an hour to
Speaker 1: their journey, but also put a sizeable water barrier between
Speaker 1: Rolling Fuck and the advancing forces of the Heavenly Kingdom.
Speaker 1: It had been a tight fit at several points, and
Speaker 1: Rowland had enjoyed watching the wheeled city crunch over several
Speaker 1: abandoned homes in many a street lamp. But eventually the
Speaker 1: pilots and navigators had found a suitably large public park
Speaker 1: and brought Rolling Fuck to rest there. It's a nice sunrise,
Speaker 1: Manny said. The kids stood next to Rowland on a
Speaker 1: wooden deck built onto the side of the main roller Skofucker.
Speaker 1: Mike had assured them this spot provided the best advantage
Speaker 1: point to watch the rising sun. It looked like he'd
Speaker 1: been right in that the sky around them was a
Speaker 1: heavy blend of red and orange that brought up fragmented
Speaker 1: memories of my ties and fireballs and Roland's head clouds
Speaker 1: clustered at the top of the horizon, ripe to bursting
Speaker 1: with the color and light of the new days sun.
Speaker 1: Roland nodded. Yeah, the shame no one who lives here
Speaker 1: gets to see it. Manny said, I've never seen the
Speaker 1: city this empty. Roland looked over at his young friend.
Speaker 1: The boy had seen a lot for his age, and
Speaker 1: Roland could see how much it pained him. Sorrow had
Speaker 1: as sent all its own. The plunging levels of nora,
Speaker 1: panephren and serotonin brought out the sharp stink of cortosol
Speaker 1: in the greasy odor of opioids. Lurking just below those
Speaker 1: smells was the odd, spicy tinge of the I L
Speaker 1: eighteen protein. Roland could almost hear it weaken the valves
Speaker 1: of Manny's heart. I imagine this sucks extra much for you.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's been where they are right twice, Manny said.
Speaker 1: Roland nodded and an't exactly recall, he admitted, but I
Speaker 1: expect I had something to do with the first time.
Speaker 1: Manny looked over to Rowland. Chemically, it was clear the
Speaker 1: kid was battling him a lunge of sadness, trauma, and anxiety.
Speaker 1: His actual thoughts, though, were just as hidden from Rowland
Speaker 1: as they would be from any stock human, perhaps more so.
Speaker 1: There were moments when Roland feared he was losing the
Speaker 1: ability to read human emotions or even display them properly
Speaker 1: on his face. Was that look you're given me? He asked? Finally,
Speaker 1: what do you mean? I can't tell what a look
Speaker 1: on your face means, Rowland explained, And I'm curious. Are
Speaker 1: you angry at me? Manny shrugged, and then he sighed.
Speaker 1: His shoulders slumped, his head drooped forward and down just
Speaker 1: a bit. No, he said, I'm not angry. What would
Speaker 1: I even be angry about? If you can't remember what
Speaker 1: you did back? Then are you even the same person
Speaker 1: who did those things? And even if you are, maybe
Speaker 1: you were doing the right thing. I assume someone was
Speaker 1: at some point that fucking mess of a war. Maybe
Speaker 1: everyone was, Roland offered. I know the heavenly Kingdom think
Speaker 1: what they're doing is right. Manny said, I also don't
Speaker 1: give a shitting dick what they think. They're murderers. They
Speaker 1: can all sit and spin. You're confident in me murdering
Speaker 1: the lot of them is the right thing to do,
Speaker 1: then I'm confident. It's better than letting them win, Manny said.
Speaker 1: Roland nodded quietly and stared out at the rising sun.
Speaker 1: The red had faded and the orange had grown brighter.
Speaker 1: He could see the shape of the sun behind the
Speaker 1: clouds missed rose off the field in front of them,
Speaker 1: and across the lake. A low light fog rolled in
Speaker 1: over what appeared to be an old golf course. You're
Speaker 1: probably right about that, Roland said, But where does it end.
Speaker 1: It ends when they're beaten and Austin is safe. Manny's
Speaker 1: words were forceful, but he looked down and away from
Speaker 1: Roland when he spoke. You know that's not true, Roland said.
Speaker 1: I forget my own name a lot of the time,
Speaker 1: and I still know you're full of it killing these
Speaker 1: fox buys Austin time, and probably not a lot of it.
Speaker 1: Are still millions of guns and millions of piste off
Speaker 1: desperate people in this ragged chunk of country. So what
Speaker 1: are you saying, Roland? It'd be better to just let
Speaker 1: the one place around here that isn't terrible get eaten
Speaker 1: by darkness. No, Roland said, but read the writing on
Speaker 1: the damn wall this place. He waved a hand out
Speaker 1: in a gesture that encompassed the whole horizon is fucked.
Speaker 1: Don't stay here and die with it. Manny crossed his
Speaker 1: arms in front of himself and leaned forward onto the
Speaker 1: railing of the deck. His head slumped into his hands,
Speaker 1: and he was quiet for a while. Roland knew the
Speaker 1: army of the Heavenly Kingdom was less than forty miles distant.
Speaker 1: The scent of that vast ramshackle horde had grown more
Speaker 1: prominent over the last few minutes. His nose took in
Speaker 1: the stink of diesel, the ozone odor of discharging batteries,
Speaker 1: and the cumulative reek of hundreds of vehicles worth of
Speaker 1: engine oil. Behind those prominent smells lurked the foul Ganger
Speaker 1: in a stench of ten thousand men, sweating fear and
Speaker 1: stress out of every pore. Roland looked down over the
Speaker 1: deck and onto the yellow mass that led up to
Speaker 1: the shores of the lake. The warriors of Rolling Fock
Speaker 1: had started to assemble themselves. There, a large group of
Speaker 1: men and women had started to unpack dozens of quadrfracts.
Speaker 1: The four legged robots had been built by Boston Dynamics
Speaker 1: back before the fall of the old us they'd been
Speaker 1: meant to ferry men and equipment up steep Afghan mountain sides.
Speaker 1: Roland stared at them, and he stalked through the lab,
Speaker 1: a razor sharp machete in one hand and a machine
Speaker 1: pistol in the other. The air reeked of blood ahead
Speaker 1: of him. He could smell the fierce weat wafting off
Speaker 1: two engineers as they hid beneath an overturned metal table.
Speaker 1: Pieces of robotic equipment were scattered on the floor. Roland
Speaker 1: reached out his senses and felt that these were the
Speaker 1: last two people alive in the facility. He stepped forward,
Speaker 1: swinging his blade in an arc that he knew would
Speaker 1: end in flesh. Roland shook his head and pulled himself
Speaker 1: out of the past. The flashes of memory were growing
Speaker 1: more frequent. Guilt came with them. It took some effort
Speaker 1: to force his mind to focus again on the world
Speaker 1: around them. Boland looked back out at the mustering yard.
Speaker 1: Warriors dawned armor, a fantastic array of old fashioned, polished
Speaker 1: steel plate mail, ultra modern powered body armor, antique flak vests,
Speaker 1: and a significant number of costumes. He watched a man
Speaker 1: in armor that mixed the aesthetic of a Polish winged
Speaker 1: hussar with an Imperial stormtrooper. Help a woman in a
Speaker 1: crop top Neil green GIEI suit as she locked a
Speaker 1: pair of rocket launchers onto the flanks of one of
Speaker 1: the four legged robots. Over to his left, another group
Speaker 1: of warriors had started to assemble the city's vehicle pool.
Speaker 1: Ramps had descended from garages in the bellies of the rollers.
Speaker 1: A slow, steady stream of armored vehicles motored their way
Speaker 1: down the ramps and into the ragged lines on the field.
Speaker 1: The bulk of rolling Fox vehicles were either modified APCs
Speaker 1: or armored motorcycles sporting portable field guns or automatic grenade
Speaker 1: launchers on side cars. There were tactical arguments for the
Speaker 1: use of such vehicles in open field combat, of course,
Speaker 1: but Roland suspected they'd mainly been picked because they were
Speaker 1: fun to drive. Almost every vehic Cole's engine had been
Speaker 1: souped up well beyond any potential battlefield benefit. Most of
Speaker 1: them also had nitrous oxide tanks, although Roland suspected those
Speaker 1: were more for huffing than they were for speed. Where
Speaker 1: did they get all this stuff? Manny asked Rowland. I
Speaker 1: had no idea, Roland said, But when the old government fell,
Speaker 1: it left behind a lot of equipment, basses and basses
Speaker 1: full of mothballed ordinance. I guess as these guys got
Speaker 1: in early before the rush and grabbed what they could.
Speaker 1: At that moment, Rowland caught sasha scent moving down one
Speaker 1: of the spindles above the main roller. His hind brain
Speaker 1: guessed she was headed to the deck he and Manny occupied.
Speaker 1: Roland couldn't smell Jim, who was good at staying hidden,
Speaker 1: but he knew that Sasha couldn't have known where they
Speaker 1: were on her own. That meant Jim had likely sniffed
Speaker 1: Manny out and made the same assumption about Rowland's location
Speaker 1: that Rowland had made about Jim's. It wasn't long before
Speaker 1: the sliding metal door slid open and Jim and Sasha
Speaker 1: walked out onto the deck. Jim was in his familiar
Speaker 1: battle gear, his blood red chaps almost own in the
Speaker 1: blinding light of the morning sun. He had a smug,
Speaker 1: self satisfied grin, and gigantic pupils that spoke of recent
Speaker 1: drug use. Beside him, Sasha looked disheveled and exhausted, but jittery.
Speaker 1: He could smell the coffee wafting from her pores. Hey,
Speaker 1: fuck nuts, Roland said, Hey, Sasha. She looked confused for
Speaker 1: a moment. Jim just nodded and said, hey, shit bird,
Speaker 1: Hey Manny. Manny waved vaguely at them, without turning his
Speaker 1: head to meet them. He continued to look out at
Speaker 1: the army assembling in the field. It's a pretty cool
Speaker 1: showdown there, Roland said. I kind of wish I had
Speaker 1: some dissociatives and maybe a blunt. Now would be the
Speaker 1: time for one. Ah she, Jim said, Just so happens,
Speaker 1: I got both. He stepped up alongside Roland, extended his
Speaker 1: fue arm and then tapped his left index finger to
Speaker 1: the back of his right hand. The tip of that
Speaker 1: finger detached and rolled up onto his knuckle. A lion
Speaker 1: of white powder poured out onto the back of Jim's
Speaker 1: other hand. He offered it to Roland. Sure, Roland said,
Speaker 1: and railed the line. Ketamine wasn't Roland's favoritest of drugs.
Speaker 1: He preferred m x E if he was going to
Speaker 1: snort a dissociative ant. In all honesty, a big bottle
Speaker 1: of d x M heavy cough syrup mixed with vodka
Speaker 1: was even more his speed, but hey, drugs was drugs.
Speaker 1: Once Roland had finished, Jim poured out another line and
Speaker 1: offered it to Manny. No thanks, said the fixer. It's
Speaker 1: pretty good stuff, Roland said, in a helpful tone. Ketamine
Speaker 1: goes well with unspeakable violence. Might be fun to watch
Speaker 1: the battle that decides the future of your people from
Speaker 1: inside a cahole. Mannie looked defended. Roland shrugged. He glanced
Speaker 1: at Jim, who gave him an I don't know why
Speaker 1: you're looking at me. Look I'll try some, Sasha said,
Speaker 1: I mean, fucke it? Why not? It was a little
Speaker 1: cute how she stumbled over the fuck Roland found it
Speaker 1: in deering. It seemed Manny did too. The cocktail of dopamine,
Speaker 1: testosterone at oxytocin that wafted off and made his feelings
Speaker 1: as clear as day. Hell yea girl, Jim said, with
Speaker 1: an exaggerated Southern twang. Get all over and rail this
Speaker 1: that means snorted, Roland said helpfully. Sasha approached Jim's arm.
Speaker 1: She looked him in the eye, then looked over to Roland,
Speaker 1: and last to Manny. Then she stared down at the
Speaker 1: powder as if she was hoping it would say something
Speaker 1: to her. It didn't, but she leaned in any way
Speaker 1: and snorted about half of it before she sneezed and
Speaker 1: then wretched, and then staggered to the side of the
Speaker 1: deck and vomited over the side. Jim and Roland laughed
Speaker 1: in sheer joy. Manny, being a good person, moved to
Speaker 1: hold her hair back and help her deal with the
Speaker 1: puky aftershocks. While the humans engaged with their frailties. Roland
Speaker 1: and Jim did a couple more lines each. That was terrible,
Speaker 1: Sasha said. A few minutes later, here Jim chuckled It
Speaker 1: takes some getting used to, and then the door slid
Speaker 1: open again. Skullfucker. Mike walked out onto the deck. Boy
Speaker 1: ass hats, He called out, We're about to war up.
Speaker 1: You should get down to the field as app if
Speaker 1: you want to see the face taking what Manny asked.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, Sasha said, at the same time, Mike just
Speaker 1: laughed and clapped them both on the shoulders. I'll explain
Speaker 1: down in the field. Get a move on. He nodded
Speaker 1: to Sasha and added, there's a pukewash station just inside
Speaker 1: into the right, next to the bathroom. Right, Jim rubbed
Speaker 1: his hands together in excitement. Why don't you kids go
Speaker 1: roll with skull fucker Mike. I've got to get Roland
Speaker 1: up to my mechanics so we can suit him up.
Speaker 1: Roland didn't like the eagerness in Jim's eyes or the
Speaker 1: excitement in his voice when he said that there was
Speaker 1: something indecent about it. But a promise was a promise,
Speaker 1: so Roland nodded and gave Manny a little squeeze on
Speaker 1: the shoulder. I'll see you soon, buddy, This won't take long, Manny.
Speaker 1: Skull fucker Mike, Manny asked as the chromed man led
Speaker 1: them through the gantries and towards the elevator. What exactly
Speaker 1: is so special about Roland? I mean, he's a nice guy,
Speaker 1: but what makes him so much scarier than the other
Speaker 1: chromed folks like you and Topaz? What do you know
Speaker 1: about Roland's past? Mike asked? In return, very little Manny
Speaker 1: admitted he doesn't seem to remember much. I've sussed out
Speaker 1: that he was in the army back before the revolution.
Speaker 1: He's talked about fighting in Turkey, but also in Dallas
Speaker 1: and Denver and a bunch of other American cities. Mike nodded, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we met in Dallas, back before it was Ciode de Muerta.
Speaker 1: I had just been dishonorably discharged from the Marine Corps
Speaker 1: for He frowned, shook his head, and continued, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what. For I was broke and I had a
Speaker 1: body fellow Uncle Sam's chrome. He wanted it back. I
Speaker 1: wound up taken shelter in the White Rock Commune. Roland
Speaker 1: was there too. He was pretty political back in those days,
Speaker 1: always quote and baccoon in and Ochalon and Red John.
Speaker 1: Did you guys actually know Red John? Sasha asked. Up
Speaker 1: until that point, she'd walked quietly in the rear of
Speaker 1: their little group. The few times Manny had glanced back,
Speaker 1: she'd had her head down, stuck in her own little world.
Speaker 1: But now she was alert and engaged. Manny guessed it
Speaker 1: was hearing the name of the famous revolutionary that had
Speaker 1: done it. That's odd, he thought. I never met the guy,
Speaker 1: Mike said, But Rowland did. He was in real deep
Speaker 1: with that whole circle. So was that weird fucker, Jim.
Speaker 1: I was tight with Rowland, but I've never gotten to
Speaker 1: the political side of things. I liked smashing stuff and
Speaker 1: they needed stuff smashers. How does this relate to why
Speaker 1: Rowland's Rowland? Manny asked, Well, I've known old Rowland for
Speaker 1: a while. Magueni was still fully himself. He was always
Speaker 1: cagy about his background. But we had our theories, and
Speaker 1: mine was that he'd been part of Project Orange. What
Speaker 1: was that, Sasha asked, Holy fuck. Manny said he'd heard
Speaker 1: of Project Orange, although he wasn't surprised Sasha hadn't. The
Speaker 1: am FED was the closest descendant of the old United States.
Speaker 1: They'd have kept most of the bad stuff out of
Speaker 1: their history books. Well, you know, Mike said. Through the twenties,
Speaker 1: the military struggled with declining enlistment numbers. All the little
Speaker 1: resource wars climate change sparked created a need for a capable,
Speaker 1: nimble force that could project or without requiring a public
Speaker 1: commitment of force. So back in the late thirties, the U. S.
Speaker 1: Military started fucking hard with gene editing tools and bio mods.
Speaker 1: At first, it was just basic upgrades to select combat units,
Speaker 1: early versions of the healing suites y'all both have now.
Speaker 1: Then they moved on to carbon fiber laced bones, bullet
Speaker 1: resistant skin, nanohaling suites. The end result was Project Orange,
Speaker 1: the best warriors in the whole military loaded down with
Speaker 1: experimental self adapting, neural and physiological upgrades. Yeah, man he added,
Speaker 1: it was a real success, right till they wiped out
Speaker 1: a whole city. Skufucker. Mike nodded and looked back to Sasha.
Speaker 1: He's talking about the Battle of Inserlik. I've heard of that.
Speaker 1: Sasha said, a US air strike had a giant munition's cache.
Speaker 1: Like ten thousand people died. Schofucker. Mike gave a noncommittal grunt.
Speaker 1: There was one version of the story, he said. The
Speaker 1: story I heard, the story everyone told back then, is
Speaker 1: that it was Project Orange. They blew up a city.
Speaker 1: Sasha asked, they didn't blow it up. Manny said, they
Speaker 1: just butchered everyone, mostly in hand to hand combat. The
Speaker 1: DARPA guys miscalculated. Mike nodded to Manny. They'd entirely revamped
Speaker 1: the endocrine systems of these soldiers and made them immune
Speaker 1: to exhaustion and gave them perfect situational awareness. But it
Speaker 1: also made bloodshed. He trailed off and frowned while he
Speaker 1: searched for his next word addictive. So what happened to
Speaker 1: Project Orange, Sasha asked, Well, said Mike, the scientists did
Speaker 1: with scientists do. They refined things, They revised their hypotheses
Speaker 1: and tweaked their creations until the Joint Chiefs had another
Speaker 1: job for the Orange Team. They must have done well
Speaker 1: for a while, and Sir Luke was thirty nine and
Speaker 1: no one heard shipped from them until forty one, when
Speaker 1: they hit that protest in Denver, six hundred dead, Manny said,
Speaker 1: reciting the facts he'd memorized a half dozen times during
Speaker 1: his elementary education, including a sitting senator. They reached the
Speaker 1: lift doors, which slid open once they got close. Sasha
Speaker 1: and Manny stepped in first, and Mike came after them.
Speaker 1: He fiddled with the control screen on the wall for
Speaker 1: a moment. I'm just making sure this thing is set
Speaker 1: to normal human speeds. We don't want any more puke
Speaker 1: from yall today, Mike winked at Sasha. As the lift
Speaker 1: doors closed, there was a soft clump sound and Manny
Speaker 1: felt the lift descend. So yeah, schoofucker, Mike continued. The
Speaker 1: President deployed the Orange Team against a fortified camp that
Speaker 1: had blocked off access to most of downtown Denver. They
Speaker 1: cleared out the camp sure enough. After the bloodbath, some
Speaker 1: hackers with a Jesture collective took close to a terabyte
Speaker 1: out of the Pentagon servers. It contained a few files
Speaker 1: on Project Orange and a partly redacted report on the
Speaker 1: INSURLC massacre. And then Sasha asked, Mike shrugged. Then they disappeared.
Speaker 1: They weren't used during the revolution, and they'd have been
Speaker 1: pretty damn handy for the old US. At a couple
Speaker 1: of points midway through the war, we recovered some intel
Speaker 1: that they'd been wiped out some terrible accident in orbit.
Speaker 1: Only only Roland Manny said softly, yep, Schoofucker. Mike nodded,
Speaker 1: that was certainly my suspicion, still is, but the fuckers
Speaker 1: never confirmed it or denied it, not that he remembers
Speaker 1: now anyway. The lift reached the ground with a gentle bump.
Speaker 1: Its doors slid open to reveal an army six hundred
Speaker 1: people in three large clumps out by the shore of
Speaker 1: Lake Waco. To the left was the city's vehicle pool.
Speaker 1: In the center, where the infantry be decked in a
Speaker 1: ridiculous melange of medieval weaponry, small arms and handheld field artillery.
Speaker 1: And then to the right where the quadrifracts. The sight
Speaker 1: of them took Manny's breath away. There were well over
Speaker 1: a hundred of the strange horse like robots. Most of
Speaker 1: them were still being fussed over by the riders, having
Speaker 1: bolts tightened, weapons belted on to their chassis, or, in
Speaker 1: a few cases old timey leather saddle strapped onto their backs.
Speaker 1: Manny saw one saddle with what looked like a large
Speaker 1: purple dildo attached to it. The quadrifract riders were the
Speaker 1: most uniform group of warriors on the field. While rolling
Speaker 1: Fox infantry wore everything from romanly genery armor to bikinis
Speaker 1: made of bullets, the cavalry ward nothing. Even from here
Speaker 1: he could see that every nipple in the group was
Speaker 1: as hard as diamond. They were all covered in the
Speaker 1: same sort of led tattoos that Jim wore, but where
Speaker 1: his took the form of ever writing snakes, theirs appeared
Speaker 1: in blotches of gray black static all up and down
Speaker 1: their bodies. What are they? Sasha asked, voicing Manny's thoughts too.
Speaker 1: The elite skullfucker Mike said. The best of the city's
Speaker 1: warriors real tough motherfucker's mostly former soldiers who augmented their
Speaker 1: government issue upgrades way back in the day. Some of
Speaker 1: them have five or ten thousand hours of combat experience
Speaker 1: stored in their bodies. Why aren't you out there, Manny asked.
Speaker 1: H He grunted. Quadrafracts make my ass look big. Besides,
Speaker 1: Topez is a sniper. She keeps to the rear and
Speaker 1: I keep to her. It's not as fun as fucking
Speaker 1: ship up at the front eFront. His lips curled up
Speaker 1: into a wistful smile. But we all got to grow
Speaker 1: up sometime well. Sasha and Manny gawkeed the main rollers.
Speaker 1: Other lift descended. The doors opened just twenty feet to
Speaker 1: their right. Nani Yazzi was the first one out. She
Speaker 1: moved slowly. Some of that was surely due to her
Speaker 1: advanced age, but there was also a note of ritual
Speaker 1: to her movements. It was something in the arc of
Speaker 1: her spine, the cadence of her step, the way she
Speaker 1: held her head. The enormous gold bladed knife in her
Speaker 1: hand didn't hurt either. Behind her walked the citizens of
Speaker 1: Rolling Fuck. There were around fifty of them in the lift,
Speaker 1: but as that group walked forward, ropes and ladders began
Speaker 1: to roll out from all around the enormous wheeled city.
Speaker 1: Within a matter of minutes, hundreds and hundreds of people
Speaker 1: had descended. More continued to disgorge from the lifts under
Speaker 1: the main roller. In the rear roller, the riders had
Speaker 1: all formed into ordered ranks. They stood at something very
Speaker 1: much like a military attention. It was the only time
Speaker 1: he'd seen post humans do anything in an orderly fashion.
Speaker 1: Nani Yazzi stood in front of the cavalry, and the
Speaker 1: human civilians clustered behind her in a big semicircle. The
Speaker 1: other warriors gathered behind them. Mike maneuver their little group
Speaker 1: to a hill that overlooked the whole scene. It took
Speaker 1: almost twenty minutes for the entire city to gather. What
Speaker 1: are they doing, skulp fucker, Mike, Sasha asked, only stumbling
Speaker 1: a bit over the curse word in his name. This
Speaker 1: is what I wanted you to see, he replied. She's
Speaker 1: about to take their faces. Roland, the process of getting
Speaker 1: ready for war made the bile rise up in his gut.
Speaker 1: That was curious. Roland's stomach didn't still produce bile, not
Speaker 1: the same kind of vile it had when he was human.
Speaker 1: It had been years since his nervous system had been
Speaker 1: natural enough to respond to anxiety with any kind of
Speaker 1: physical symptom, and yet there it was. The bile, or
Speaker 1: the hallucination of bile, curdled at the bottom of his
Speaker 1: stomach while Jim's men strapped him into the murder suit.
Speaker 1: The armor they'd constructed was altogether different from the powered
Speaker 1: armor he'd faced a few days ago in Dallas. It
Speaker 1: was also different from what little he remembered of the
Speaker 1: armor he'd warned as an American soldier. That made sense,
Speaker 1: of course. Roland's wet waar got better with time and experience.
Speaker 1: Gear did not age so well. He watched while Sardar
Speaker 1: bolted a gauntlet into place over his left forearm. In hand,
Speaker 1: he could tell it was made of boron nitride carbon tubes,
Speaker 1: but the weapon's blister carried a sextette of tiny rockets
Speaker 1: that were not familiar to him. Sar, what are these things?
Speaker 1: A smile split the little man's dark, handsome features scatter rocklets,
Speaker 1: he said with relish. Each of them contains twelve guided
Speaker 1: solid fuel warheads the left hand or all anti personnel
Speaker 1: built to blow up big the right hand rockets. He
Speaker 1: tapped the second gauntlet, which sat on the work table
Speaker 1: next to him. Those pack a tiny bronze dart. One
Speaker 1: will penetrate a Leopard Mark five's front armor, no problem.
Speaker 1: Roland's sighed and looked around at the Workshop of Death
Speaker 1: that Jim had flown out here. From the outside, it
Speaker 1: had looked a bit like a shipping container, but painted
Speaker 1: a glossy white. Its edges were rounded and smooth, and
Speaker 1: the whole thing looked sl enough that it could have
Speaker 1: been an apple product. Inside the box was wall to
Speaker 1: wall weaponry in armor Jim's personal stash. Roland couldn't actually
Speaker 1: name any of the weapons inside. Most were similar enough
Speaker 1: to older weapons systems that he could make an educated
Speaker 1: guess as to their capabilities, but there were strange new
Speaker 1: things on the walls that he'd never seen before. Jim
Speaker 1: sat in a comfy chair at the rear of the
Speaker 1: workshop and watched start our work while he sipped scotch
Speaker 1: out of an enormous ram's horn. So this so's it's
Speaker 1: like your man cave or what Roland asked him Jim
Speaker 1: took a deep gulp and then smiled. I find it
Speaker 1: relaxes me, he said. I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: carried in this collection over the years. I spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time working on that suit, too, so don't
Speaker 1: fuck it up. Something tingled at the back of Roland's mind.
Speaker 1: The suit had clearly been built to his specifications. That
Speaker 1: suggested Jim had been planning this for a while, but
Speaker 1: Rowland had been retired at Cammeltoe until very recently. So
Speaker 1: how hey, man, I need your port, Sardar said. The
Speaker 1: squat mechanic held up a pair of fiber optic cables
Speaker 1: that terminated in peculiar boxy plugs. Not unlike old ethernet cable,
Speaker 1: they were connected to a metal breastplate on the table.
Speaker 1: Roland pointed to a pair of lumpy, white scars on
Speaker 1: his lower back. The input sockets are in there. They've
Speaker 1: scarred up. You'll have to cut em back open, but
Speaker 1: it should fit. But it should still fit. The nice
Speaker 1: thing about DARPA engineering is that a little bit of
Speaker 1: blood and skin never gets in the way. Sardar set
Speaker 1: to work carving the sockets back open. Roland felt the
Speaker 1: pain as a distant sort of itch. He was having
Speaker 1: a hard time focusing his senses on his immediate surroundings.
Speaker 1: The smells of the advancing army presented an almost overpowering
Speaker 1: flood of data. Roland had loaded up on ketamine and
Speaker 1: vodka to quiet his hind brain, but all that interfered
Speaker 1: with his introspection. He built this thing for me to wear. Jim,
Speaker 1: how long have you been planning this? He is, Jim said,
Speaker 1: his fourth rightness, surprised Roland. You'll pass as hum is
Speaker 1: a mistake, Jim continued, brought on by your overactive conscience.
Speaker 1: They are still so much you need to do in
Speaker 1: the world. I figured at some point you'd realize that yourself,
Speaker 1: so I kept my men working. Sardar lifted the heavy
Speaker 1: metal breastplate up over Roland's head and settled it over
Speaker 1: his shoulders. The weight was comforting. A cold electric shock
Speaker 1: ran through his body as the armor connected to a
Speaker 1: central nervous system. Roland felt parts of himself wake up
Speaker 1: that he hadn't truly realized were asleep. Something in him
Speaker 1: had missed that feeling, and he felt guilty for that.
Speaker 1: I'm taking this thing off the instant. The fight's over, Jim,
Speaker 1: you wasted your money. Jim smile only deepened. You've forgotten
Speaker 1: how fun it is, Rowland, and you've forgotten what it's
Speaker 1: like to be a fucking human. Roland countered, have you
Speaker 1: always been a sociopath? Is this what I was like
Speaker 1: back before whatever took my memories? Jim's amused, smiled and
Speaker 1: shift by so much as a nanometer. Roland felt a
Speaker 1: spike of irritation before he was distracted by Sardar. Raise
Speaker 1: your hand, please, the mechanic said. He lifted a four
Speaker 1: barreled machine gun on a circular frame and slid it
Speaker 1: around Roland's right arm. Sardar bolted the weapon into place
Speaker 1: while he explained it's a stack charged machine gun magnetically fired,
Speaker 1: similar to the old metal storm weapons. But this fucker's
Speaker 1: capable of putting out twenty thousand rounds per second. How
Speaker 1: long an a fire? Sardar laughed a little less than
Speaker 1: a second. The mechanic turned back to his table, and
Speaker 1: Roland tried to direct his wandering mind back to the
Speaker 1: conversation with Jim. You're going to love it, his old
Speaker 1: friend said, I know you've been lovin' it when you've
Speaker 1: fought your way out of that citia could smell the
Speaker 1: dopamine waftin off your brain from all the way out here.
Speaker 1: Sardar snapped a queasts around Roland's thigh. The armor also
Speaker 1: sported a bulky weapon's blister on its outside edge gas
Speaker 1: grenade launcher. The mechanic explained, should co great with all
Speaker 1: the frag rocklets. Uh so we're committing war crimes now,
Speaker 1: Roland asked him, with more indignation than he really felt.
Speaker 1: Jim rolled his eyes. Is just he a gas? He said,
Speaker 1: mostly at least I may have included some aresolazed l
Speaker 1: s D in there. I've been on a big psychochemical
Speaker 1: warfare kicked lately For a little while Sardar worked in silence,
Speaker 1: Jim drank and Roland stared near him, but not at him.
Speaker 1: The self inflicted haze in his head had cleared a bit.
Speaker 1: That meant his hind brain grew louder. By now it
Speaker 1: was all but shouting about the approaching army. Roland felt
Speaker 1: a trickle of adrenaline, oxytocin, and endorphins. His left hand
Speaker 1: twitched involuntarily. He felt the power of the weapons system
Speaker 1: around him, and he felt the power in his own body,
Speaker 1: something like a rousal gripped him. Roland fought it down
Speaker 1: as best he could, but it lingered there at the
Speaker 1: edge of his consciousness. I've been remembering more, he said
Speaker 1: to Jim, as much to distract himself as out of
Speaker 1: a desire to get it off his chest. M Jim
Speaker 1: cocked an eyebrow in interest. I've had a few big
Speaker 1: sshes of memories. Once, when we drove into Dallas, past
Speaker 1: the side of the Lakewood Blast, I remembered. He locked
Speaker 1: eyes with Jim, and Jim nodded back his eyes said,
Speaker 1: I know so, Roland moved on. The memories come most
Speaker 1: intensely when I'm in combat. I remembered hiking with Topaz.
Speaker 1: I remembered burning the Taz in Denver. I got flashes
Speaker 1: of you and me in Mexico, and a lot more.
Speaker 1: I'm still certain through it. It's confusing because there's no
Speaker 1: timeline for any of this, just associated memories I know happened.
Speaker 1: At some point, Jim leaned forward, his eyes flashed with
Speaker 1: excitement interest, and he said, tell me, have you been
Speaker 1: able to draw any conclusions about who you were from
Speaker 1: what you've remembered? Have you gotten any insight into the
Speaker 1: old Roland. Roland frowned. He'd been so focused on trying
Speaker 1: to remember his old life that he hadn't given much
Speaker 1: thought to what the memories he had said about the
Speaker 1: man he'd been. As he pondered, Roland's mind lingered on
Speaker 1: the memory of shooting the Cheney Boy in the act
Speaker 1: of the head. I think I used to be a
Speaker 1: lot more like you, Roland said. Jim grinned, his lips
Speaker 1: curled up to reveal long rows of white, straight teeth.
Speaker 1: That's true, he said, Why else do you think I've
Speaker 1: missed you so much? Sasha? A part of Sasha had
Speaker 1: believed that after the Heavenly Kingdom, nothing she saw whatever
Speaker 1: shock her again. That part of her was proven wrong
Speaker 1: when Nana Yazzi's aged, darthritic hand began to messily carve
Speaker 1: at the first warrior's face. Her target was the young
Speaker 1: woman with the chrome hawk Sasha had seen in the
Speaker 1: War Council. The carving was a messy thing. It took
Speaker 1: the better part of a minute for her to slice
Speaker 1: and peel the skin free. Sasha noticed that there was
Speaker 1: very little blood. It was messy, but not as messy
Speaker 1: as it should have been. Once she was finished, Nana
Speaker 1: Yazzi stepped back with the woman's face in her hand.
Speaker 1: As she did, dozens of citizens stepped forward. They pulled
Speaker 1: out daggers, swords, straight razors, and switchblades of their own.
Speaker 1: Each civilian paired off with a warrior and began to carve.
Speaker 1: Some of them were quick and practiced. The motion of
Speaker 1: their hands reminded Sasha of an autopsy video she'd watched
Speaker 1: in one of her pre met classes, but the other
Speaker 1: citizens were cruder with their cutting. A few verged on
Speaker 1: brutal hacking and slashing at the faces and necks of
Speaker 1: their persons. None of the post human warriors showed any
Speaker 1: signs of pain or discomfort. They just stood, unmoving and
Speaker 1: without their faces, seemingly without emotion. I don't understand, Sasha said.
Speaker 1: She hadn't expected to say it out loud. The words
Speaker 1: just slipped out. It's a symbolic thing, Scoffucker Mike explained.
Speaker 1: Before they leave, the city's warriors give up their identities
Speaker 1: to the group. They leave their humanity behind and bloodied
Speaker 1: tatters in the hands of their friends and loved ones.
Speaker 1: It's a way of making sure the city civilians don't
Speaker 1: leave a war without blood on their hands, and it
Speaker 1: makes them look fucking terrifying, someone said from behind them.
Speaker 1: Sasha turned around. A short, fit man approached them. He
Speaker 1: had a thin build, but his body was girded with
Speaker 1: lithe muscle. There was something familiar about his face, the
Speaker 1: short mop of curly black hair atop his head. The
Speaker 1: man smiled when Sasha saw him, revealing pointed metallic fangs.
Speaker 1: Hey wait a second, low, Topez, Skolfucker, Mike said. Manny
Speaker 1: looked shocked as well. He stared at the man in surprise. Topez,
Speaker 1: what happened? There was a woman with those exact same
Speaker 1: teeth yesterday when we arrived at the city. Sasha hadn't
Speaker 1: gotten a woman's name, but she'd borne a striking resemblance
Speaker 1: to this man. I felt like a man to day,
Speaker 1: Topez said, what with the war and all? Sasha finally
Speaker 1: realized what had happened. Of course, she thought these people
Speaker 1: can change their physiology on a dime, Ah, Manny said
Speaker 1: with a nod. Skolfucker. Mike walked up to Topaz and
Speaker 1: the two embraced and then kissed. They twined their arms together,
Speaker 1: and a few seconds later, Topaz seemed to finally notice
Speaker 1: Sasha's presence. Sorry, he smiled as he spoke, But I
Speaker 1: don't believe I got your name, Sasha. Sasha Mariian. Topaz
Speaker 1: stepped closer. Well, Sasha Mariian, He said, in a low voice,
Speaker 1: how are you liking? Are strange ways and customs? They're interesting?
Speaker 1: Sasha said diplomatically. Do you find this place more to
Speaker 1: your liking than the heavenly Kingdom? Topaz stepped closer. Sasha
Speaker 1: took a step back and then another. The man's expression
Speaker 1: was friendly enough, but there was a sort of queer
Speaker 1: menace in the set of his shoulders. It may have
Speaker 1: had something to do with the very large rifle slung
Speaker 1: across his back. Sasha started to sweat. Fear gripped her mind.
Speaker 1: Topaz back off, schoolfucker. Mike's voice was devoid of anger,
Speaker 1: but firm. You're scaring her. Topaz stopped and stared at Mike.
Speaker 1: His expression went from plo said smile to rage, and
Speaker 1: then back to a smile, almost faster than Sasha could process. Sorry, darling,
Speaker 1: he said, in an artificially chipper voice. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure our guest was enjoying her stay here.
Speaker 1: He looked to Sasha, again. You are, aren't you? Yes, good,
Speaker 1: Topaz purred, Hopefully you won't be joining any more extremist
Speaker 1: groups to get my friends killed. He turned immediately to
Speaker 1: Manny and with barely a pause for breath, embraced him
Speaker 1: and kissed his forehead. I'm proud of you, buddy, as
Speaker 1: far as I'm concerned your family. Manny mumbled his thanks
Speaker 1: and returned the hug, but he glanced at Sasha and
Speaker 1: they shared a what the hell look? Schoolfucker. Mike seemed
Speaker 1: to want a plaster over the awkwardness. Yep, he said,
Speaker 1: We've made some wonderful friends these last couple of days.
Speaker 1: He pantomime looking down at his watchless wrist and checking
Speaker 1: the time. Oh my goodness, he said, in mock surprise.
Speaker 1: Look at the time, Topaz, We've got a war to
Speaker 1: get to. You kids had better find some decent seats.
Speaker 1: Topaz smiled at skulf Ger Mike, his eyes lingered on
Speaker 1: the big man's face, and then drifted back to Sasha.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the show, he said, with an empty smile. Rowland,
Speaker 1: it was windy on the landing pad. He and Jim
Speaker 1: stood next to a heavy black feetole aircraft, the steed
Speaker 1: that would carry him into today's massacre. Roland could taste
Speaker 1: the dying summer and the faint stirrings of a North
Speaker 1: Texas fall in the air. It was cooler than he'd
Speaker 1: have expected this time of the year, grayer too. A
Speaker 1: gust of chill wind blew across his face, and Roland
Speaker 1: found himself falling back in time again. He was shorter,
Speaker 1: The world seemed sharper, even though his senses were dim
Speaker 1: and unenlightened. Roland felt a hand about his own. It
Speaker 1: felt big, powerful, and comforting. He looked up and saw
Speaker 1: a woman standing over him. She was tall, a giant.
Speaker 1: Her hair was brown and straight and long and clear
Speaker 1: as day in his mind's eye, but her face was blank,
Speaker 1: obscured even in memory. His head turned to track the
Speaker 1: passage of a blowing leaf. He felt chill winter air
Speaker 1: on his arm, and he watched as a red sedan
Speaker 1: rumbled past them, spraying water into the airs, and hit
Speaker 1: a puddle on the asphalt. Rowland pay attention. Jim's voice
Speaker 1: snapped him back to reality. The other chrombed man held
Speaker 1: a paper thin tablet in front of Roland's face. That
Speaker 1: memory flash had been the most immersive yet, although not
Speaker 1: the longest. He was a little confused at that why
Speaker 1: that moment? Had it just been the similarity in weather
Speaker 1: or Rowland? Jim was angry. It was actually somewhat refreshing
Speaker 1: to see genuine emotion on the other man's post human face.
Speaker 1: Veins bulged at his neck and his eyes were fully open.
Speaker 1: Roland caught a harsh whiff of methamphetamine from his breath.
Speaker 1: All right, all right, fucking chill, Roland muttered, what am
Speaker 1: I looking at? He needn't have asked. Once he focused
Speaker 1: on the tablet, it was obvious that it displayed a
Speaker 1: map of the area around Lake Waco. Rolling Fox warriors
Speaker 1: and vehicles were displayed in little blue pinpoints. Jim scrolled
Speaker 1: up a few inches and Roland saw a swarm of red.
Speaker 1: It was half over the Brazos right now, and it
Speaker 1: crept millimeter by millimeter towards their position. The river slowed
Speaker 1: him down a bit, Jim said, but the bridges there
Speaker 1: was still in good order. I'd say they'll hit rock
Speaker 1: Creak in about ten minutes. Roland nodded and asked, couldn't
Speaker 1: we have killed those bridges bought some hours? Jim gave
Speaker 1: a careless shrug. Why would we want to slow em down?
Speaker 1: We're ready enough. No sense in dragging this out. There
Speaker 1: was a strong smell of ozone as the V Toll
Speaker 1: aircraft next to them woke up. Red lights glowed on
Speaker 1: the missile pods slung under its belly. The chain gun
Speaker 1: on its nose cycled. The whole thing hummed with potential energy.
Speaker 1: It was too modern for Rolland to know the make
Speaker 1: and model, but it reminded him of the Russian Coba
Speaker 1: Assault transport, which had been state of the art back
Speaker 1: in the mid forties. So is the plan, he asked
Speaker 1: Jim Well, His friend said, we know they've got at
Speaker 1: least a half a dozen mobile antire batteries old US
Speaker 1: Patriot threes inaccurate garbage. Nothing I'm worried about. The name
Speaker 1: conjured up a ghost of another memory. A big Patriot
Speaker 1: battery wheeled around on its truck size chassis. He heard
Speaker 1: the machine whine of the motors, and then the reek
Speaker 1: of fear hit his nose, as rich and heavy as
Speaker 1: Texas thunder. There were missiles in the air aimed at
Speaker 1: him as he fell. They were child's plated dodge in
Speaker 1: his suit. He descended his fear stink rolled up towards
Speaker 1: him from the soldiers below. The poor fucker's Rowland. Jim shouted,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna have to find another murder guerilla to
Speaker 1: take your place. What No, Roland shook his head. Sorry,
Speaker 1: he said, just memories. Jim gave him a long look
Speaker 1: and if then you need to talk about right now? No,
Speaker 1: Roland said, it's just the memories are coming at me
Speaker 1: faster now. It's distracting. That makes sense, Jim said, I'd
Speaker 1: imagine stimuli that reminds you of your past could prompt
Speaker 1: your brain into sudden healing. He reached into a bag
Speaker 1: at his hip. It looked like a standard dump pouch
Speaker 1: meant for half spent magazines in the heat of battle,
Speaker 1: but Jim pulled out a fully loaded crack pipe. Even unlit,
Speaker 1: it smelled like burning tires at a non percent pule.
Speaker 1: Jim held the pipe up to Roland right. Roland grabbed
Speaker 1: the pipe and lifted it to his lips. Jim reached
Speaker 1: out and flipped on the lighter built into his index finger.
Speaker 1: He held it under the glass bubble of the pipe.
Speaker 1: The rocks vaporized into white smoke rolland inhaled and felt
Speaker 1: the vapor dissolve into his blood stream through his mucous membranes.
Speaker 1: There was a tingle as the crack reached his brain's
Speaker 1: ventral tegmental area, and said, in essence, you know how
Speaker 1: much dopamine you were planning to produce? Make a ship
Speaker 1: load more than that. The happy chemicals flooded Roland's mind.
Speaker 1: His anxiety at their recently churned up memories faded, as
Speaker 1: did the memories themselves better. Jim asked, super good, Roland said,
Speaker 1: can I Jim waved, show a man keep the pipe.
Speaker 1: In fact, he pulled his index finger free from his
Speaker 1: hand and gave it to Roland. Keep that, I'll grow
Speaker 1: a new one. Cool. Roland took the finger, flicked it
Speaker 1: a light, and took another deep pole of burning crack,
Speaker 1: so he said, as he exhaled a plume of crack smoke.
Speaker 1: The plan right, said Jim, like I told you, Rock
Speaker 1: Creek is where we planned to hit him. The Edmund
Speaker 1: Fitzgerald here. Jim banged a hand on the side of
Speaker 1: the vToll craft. It's gonna take you up to around
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand feet and then drop you right on the heads.
Speaker 1: I expect we'll take some flak afterwards. But this bird
Speaker 1: can handle it. And besides, he raised his voice and
Speaker 1: jerked his head towards the cockpit. Anderson's piloting it today,
Speaker 1: and it's not like I give a shit if he does.
Speaker 1: In response, the nosegun wheeled around on its mount and
Speaker 1: locked on to Jim. There was a clinking sound as
Speaker 1: it ratcheted around into its chamber. Jim rolled his eyes.
Speaker 1: Fucking pilots. Anyway, me and my people will be with
Speaker 1: the Roland fuck folks getting shot at. He tapped Roland's helmet.
Speaker 1: When we're ready for you, I'll ping you both, and
Speaker 1: Anderson can drop you on top of the asses. So
Speaker 1: Roland asked, I've just got a fall on top of
Speaker 1: a hostile army and start shooting. Jim nodded, right, then,
Speaker 1: let's get started. Manny. Years ago and what now seemed
Speaker 1: like another life, Manny had gone to watch an outdoor
Speaker 1: movie at Silker Park in Austin Ghostbusters. He was pretty
Speaker 1: sure it had been Ghostbusters. Hundreds and hundreds of people
Speaker 1: had shown up, families with children and couples on dates,
Speaker 1: and so so many dogs. The sound hadn't been great,
Speaker 1: and the projectionist could have been better, but he remembered
Speaker 1: the evening fondly. Rolling fuck before a battle reminded him
Speaker 1: of that experience. The people were different. Very few of
Speaker 1: them were children, but clusters of citizens, friend groups, and
Speaker 1: families and families of friends had set up little viewing
Speaker 1: nooks across the wheeled city itself and in the field
Speaker 1: in front of it. The whole scene would have been
Speaker 1: idyllic if they weren't about to watch a battle. The
Speaker 1: vehicle's cavalry and infantry were already almost out of view.
Speaker 1: He could just barely see shapes out on the horizon
Speaker 1: setting up firing positions on top of buildings in Rock Creek.
Speaker 1: They moved so damn fast. Manny didn't think he'd ever
Speaker 1: get used to the pace of post human life. He
Speaker 1: knew Topaz and Skullfucker Mike were somewhere out there, he
Speaker 1: knew where they'd be soon, and in spite of their confidence,
Speaker 1: he worried for them more than anyone. He worried for Roland.
Speaker 1: Drinks for everyone. Donald Ferris said he had a tray
Speaker 1: full of drinks in his hands, fresh from the bar.
Speaker 1: He sat down next to Nana Yazi and smiled. Manny
Speaker 1: and Sasha sat on the opposite side of them in
Speaker 1: a booth in the main roller's bar, looking out over Waco.
Speaker 1: Donald started handing out beverages, first bubbly drinks and long
Speaker 1: brown bottles that smelled familiar Coca cola. The old documentarian said,
Speaker 1: not the stuff they still sell all over, the original
Speaker 1: recipe with cocaine and alcohol. It's great ship. We go
Speaker 1: through gallons of it every day. Nana Yazi took a
Speaker 1: sip from hers and smiled. It's quite good, she said,
Speaker 1: and the intoxicating effect is mild. Our chromed comrades have
Speaker 1: a stronger variant. Of course, we're all humans here. Donald
Speaker 1: smiled more or less Many took one of the cokes,
Speaker 1: sipped it, and nodded to Sasha. It's really good, he said,
Speaker 1: you should try it. It was good, and it didn't
Speaker 1: seem like it was too strong. Nanny took another sip
Speaker 1: and smiled. As Sasha grabbed her bottle and took a gulp.
Speaker 1: She seemed to like it. There was a loud pop
Speaker 1: sound from somewhere up above. Manny tensed up, but then
Speaker 1: he tracked its origin to one of the landing pads
Speaker 1: that extended from a gantry tower at least a hundred
Speaker 1: feet above them. Dozens of small black shapes flitted out
Speaker 1: from it and soared forward off in the same direction
Speaker 1: the army had gone spy drones. Donald Ferris explained, they'll
Speaker 1: be at the front by the time the fighting starts.
Speaker 1: This all seemed so weird, Sasha said, I think I
Speaker 1: read about people doing something similar during the Civil War.
Speaker 1: They'd set up picnic blankets on hills overlooking the battle.
Speaker 1: Donald Ferris grunted and shifted in his seat a bit awkwardly.
Speaker 1: Nani Yazi smiled and said, it is a bit like that.
Speaker 1: The differences that we're not doing this to be voyeurs.
Speaker 1: We won't see much fighting. What will we see? Just watch?
Speaker 1: Donald Ferris said, and reached for a tiny shot glass
Speaker 1: filled with a yellow brown liquid. But ever drink first,
Speaker 1: it'll help. Manny took one of the shot glasses and
Speaker 1: moved to belt it down, but Nanyazzie put her hand
Speaker 1: on his. That's fine, te quel a son, I'd recommend sipping.
Speaker 1: So he sipped it and it was good. The burn
Speaker 1: rolled down his throat and mixed with the cocaine and
Speaker 1: alcohol from the Coca cola. A comfortable, warm haze settled
Speaker 1: over Mannie. He was about to encourage Sasha to try
Speaker 1: some when another sound intruded. The high hum of drones
Speaker 1: filled the air. Mannie fought down an irrational surge of anxiety.
Speaker 1: He wasn't sure he'd ever feel comfortable with the sound
Speaker 1: of drones again. Each of these drones was the size
Speaker 1: and rough density of a rottweiler. They flew in pairs,
Speaker 1: connected by what looked like a thick, bindy white tube
Speaker 1: that hung between them. Several pairs settled in front of
Speaker 1: the main roller's bar in a stable hover. With a
Speaker 1: whirr and a click, the white tubes in between them
Speaker 1: opened up and unfurled into screens. A second later, the
Speaker 1: screens lit up. Manny took another sip of Truly Fabulous
Speaker 1: tequila and looked back across his new friends. Donald Ferris
Speaker 1: looked somber as solemn and gray as a granite wall.
Speaker 1: Nana Yazi seemed almost excited, as if she'd reached the
Speaker 1: first jump scare in a good horror movie. Sasha hadn't
Speaker 1: touched her liquor. She didn't seem to have taken more
Speaker 1: than a few SIPs of the coke Manny found himself
Speaker 1: wondering what would happen to her after all this? What
Speaker 1: am I going to do after this? Manny realized with
Speaker 1: a bit of shock that Oscar's wife was the only
Speaker 1: person he'd messaged in almost a week. He hadn't sent
Speaker 1: anything to his family or his friends back in Austin.
Speaker 1: He'd had the excuse of his deck being deactivated when
Speaker 1: he'd been inside the Kingdom, but now that he was
Speaker 1: back and his deck was functional, his lack of communication
Speaker 1: felt less and less defensible. Just thinking about Ayisha and
Speaker 1: the terrible news he still had yet to deliver brought
Speaker 1: a spike of anxiety that was somehow worse than his
Speaker 1: fear over the coming battle. There's a certain sound that
Speaker 1: happens when a large group of people all noticed some
Speaker 1: thing at the same time. That sound shook Manny out
Speaker 1: of his contemplation and alerted him to the fact that
Speaker 1: something had started to happen on the screens. He looked up,
Speaker 1: and he saw that all the screens scattered around the
Speaker 1: city and hovering over the field now shared the same images.
Speaker 1: One side of the screens displayed a video feed of
Speaker 1: a man in full tactical armor. His eyes covered by
Speaker 1: goggles and his head protected by a black helmet. He
Speaker 1: was seated in the cupola of an armored vehicle rolling
Speaker 1: fast over the highway. Next to that video feed was
Speaker 1: a picture of the same man Sam's armor in more
Speaker 1: peaceful days. He was fair skinned, with red hair and
Speaker 1: an easy smile. He wore a shirt that Manny guests
Speaker 1: signified his allegiance to some sports team. In the am
Speaker 1: fed the images sat there alone for a second. Manny
Speaker 1: looked out at the horizon towards Rock Creek, where Rolling
Speaker 1: Fox soldiers had embedded themselves. He saw three black gray
Speaker 1: contrails rush out from an old office building and out
Speaker 1: towards the highway. The Heavenly Kingdom's forces were just barely
Speaker 1: visible to his naked eye, tiny ant sized tanks and transports.
Speaker 1: All three rockets hit, and the black smoke of the
Speaker 1: detonations obscured the head of the vehicle column. And then
Speaker 1: on the video feed, a rocket burst right above the
Speaker 1: man in the cupola. Manny watched as he was torn
Speaker 1: apart in a hail of shrapnel. The video and the
Speaker 1: still image of his smiling face were replaced a second
Speaker 1: later by a looping video of an older man playing
Speaker 1: with a baby girl. He picked her up and spun
Speaker 1: her around, and the camera zoomed in on his joyous smile.
Speaker 1: Another video played of a younger man attending his high
Speaker 1: school graduation. More videos and still images popped up, displaying
Speaker 1: gentle moments in the lives of at least a dozen
Speaker 1: different men, and then all the screens cut violently to
Speaker 1: video of and exploding a PC. Manny jerked back in surprise.
Speaker 1: He saw that Sasha had reacted similarly. Naniazi just sat
Speaker 1: and stared, her face unreadable. Donald Ferris frowned, and when
Speaker 1: he noticed Manny looking back at him, he waved a
Speaker 1: gentle hand towards the screen and the word watch. Manny
Speaker 1: turned back to the screens in time to see them
Speaker 1: populate with more faces and more looping videos. He watched
Speaker 1: his children open birthday presents and celebrated graduations. He saw
Speaker 1: young men pose with team mates or hug their kids.
Speaker 1: He saw pizza parties and Christmas mornings and laughter and love,
Speaker 1: and then another vehicle detonated. The screen cleared, and then
Speaker 1: it populated again with scenes from four more lives. Next
Speaker 1: to video of a detonating leopard tank, the parade of
Speaker 1: shattered lives went on as rockets, mortars, and now gunfire
Speaker 1: lashed out from Rock Creek and towards the vehicle column.
Speaker 1: Rowland isn't even there yet. This is just the beginning,
Speaker 1: Manny stared out, numb and queasy, and watched as the
Speaker 1: Heavenly Kingdom's armored spearhead changed direction and began the drive
Speaker 1: to Rock Creek. They were firing now, too, pouring explosive
Speaker 1: shot and long range rockets into the neighborhood. This is
Speaker 1: what you wanted, he reminded himself, as the parade of
Speaker 1: death sped up Rowland. It was downright cold at fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand feet. Rowland relished the bite in the air and
Speaker 1: stared out the Edmond Fitzgerald's side window. As he hit
Speaker 1: Jim's crack pipe for the last time, his synapses bubbled
Speaker 1: with dopamine. Now he couldn't stop his lips from curling
Speaker 1: up into a grin as he looked out onto the
Speaker 1: distant fields below. Five minutes to drop point, the pilot's
Speaker 1: voice echoed through the cargo compartment. Normally it would have
Speaker 1: held an array of smart bombs or close as salt drones.
Speaker 1: Today it held only Rowland. He stepped forward towards the
Speaker 1: rear bay doors of the craft. The feeling of the
Speaker 1: cold deck under his feet and the elevated hemoglobin levels
Speaker 1: in his blood brought the threat of another rush of
Speaker 1: memory to Roland's mind. The dizzy glee of the crack
Speaker 1: high helped him shrug it off. Combat soon, battle and
Speaker 1: battle drugs. He tried to temper his excitement. He didn't
Speaker 1: want to crave that high as much as he did.
Speaker 1: It'll just take a few seconds, he told himself, and
Speaker 1: then I can disengage. He could already feel the Heavenly
Speaker 1: Kingdom's army far below settling in Their nose had been
Speaker 1: bloodied by rolling Fox rocketry, but they'd suffered relatively few casualties.
Speaker 1: So far, the plan did seem to be working. Dozens
Speaker 1: of vehicles and thousands of men had already moved into
Speaker 1: position around the Rock Creek neighborhood. Roland could hear the
Speaker 1: sounds of their mortars, recoilless rifles, and assault guns opening fire.
Speaker 1: He reached out with his senses and tried to find
Speaker 1: Topaz and Skullfucker Mike in the mess, but their scents
Speaker 1: and heat profiles were obscured by shellfire and smoke, Roland
Speaker 1: was able to locate Jim, as well as Bigsby and
Speaker 1: his assault team. They were hunkered down at the edge
Speaker 1: of the neighborhood, embedded in an abandoned apartment complex, and
Speaker 1: engaged in a furious firefight with the Heavenly Kingdom's vanguard.
Speaker 1: Roland could smell the dopamine rushing into jim synapses from
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand feet in the air. His heart began to
Speaker 1: beat faster. He felt his left hand start to shake,
Speaker 1: not in fear, but in delirious anticipation of the battle drugs.
Speaker 1: Another flash of memory took him, and his hand shook
Speaker 1: so bad he could barely hold the needle straight. He'd
Speaker 1: already missed the vain troice. God darn it, God damn it,
Speaker 1: he cursed, before taking a deep breath and preparing himself
Speaker 1: to try again. Sixty seconds to drop. The pilot's voice
Speaker 1: pulled Roland back into the moment. That memory had felt weird.
Speaker 1: It had been blurry in his mind's eye, but Roland's
Speaker 1: arms and hands had felt smaller than was I shooting
Speaker 1: up dope as a teenager. He knew the answer based
Speaker 1: on his current predilections was probably Roland shook his mind
Speaker 1: away from the past and focused again on the war downstairs.
Speaker 1: The Kingdom had moved quickly. He guessed around four thousand
Speaker 1: of their men were already in position. These would be
Speaker 1: the elite, their most veteran fighters, the soldiers wearing power
Speaker 1: armor or writing in real armored transports and not up
Speaker 1: gun trucks. He could feel the rest of the Kingdom's
Speaker 1: army flung out far behind them in a long tale
Speaker 1: that stretched back to the brazos. How many of these
Speaker 1: men will die today? How many are already dead? Seconds
Speaker 1: his nose caught the distant gasoline reek of a flamethrower
Speaker 1: opening up on a squad of advancing martyrs. That's out
Speaker 1: to be Gym Right five seconds, the jump light turned
Speaker 1: from red to green, and the bombay doors opened with
Speaker 1: a rush of air and wind that cracked the uncovered
Speaker 1: skin on Roland's face. Three, said the pilot. He stepped
Speaker 1: out to the ledge and planted his feet. The world
Speaker 1: whipped by around them at a maddening speed. Roland looked down,
Speaker 1: focused and saw the heavenly Kingdom's army underneath him, dozens
Speaker 1: of vehicles and thousands of men had taken up position
Speaker 1: in a large park and several buildings surrounding Rock Creek.
Speaker 1: Two large gatherings of mortars and a trio of Leopard
Speaker 1: tanks made up the bulk of the artillery now pouring
Speaker 1: fire into rolling Fox forces. There were also several large
Speaker 1: field guns and rocket batteries currently being bolted into place
Speaker 1: in an old parking lot behind the park. Competent Roland
Speaker 1: was impressed by how the Kingdom's soldiers had parked their
Speaker 1: armored transports to help complete a fortress wall around one
Speaker 1: side of Rock Creek. They'd sent a few probing attacks
Speaker 1: of power armored troopers, but he could tell they wouldn't
Speaker 1: launch a full assault until they'd flattened the neighborhood to
Speaker 1: a trickle of endorphins and serotonin enjoined the soggy mush
Speaker 1: of dopamine and Roland's synapses. He closed his eyes and
Speaker 1: with a thought, activated the sundry weapons systems that Sardar
Speaker 1: had wired into his body. The missiles in their pods hummed,
Speaker 1: and the barrels around his right arm chimed in readiness.
Speaker 1: Lyrics from a half remembered song flitted across his mind. Time, time,
Speaker 1: time for another peaceful war. One Roland stepped off the
Speaker 1: back of the craft and into the skies embrace Sasha.
Speaker 1: The faces flashed by, along with video clips and curated
Speaker 1: posts from social media, and of course, scenes of death.
Speaker 1: Some of the men died from sniper fire, cut down
Speaker 1: as they ran for cover. Others died in long range
Speaker 1: firefights or from shrapnel. The pace of death had gradually
Speaker 1: risen over the course of the battle. Some of that
Speaker 1: was due to the fact that the martyrs had sent
Speaker 1: in several assault teams to test the metal of the Defenders.
Speaker 1: Those men had died fast and badly. Many of them
Speaker 1: had been burnt alive. The sight of it all should
Speaker 1: have horrified her. She wanted it to horrify her. Everyone
Speaker 1: else at the table had tears in their eyes. Even
Speaker 1: Nanny Ozzie was crying, and that lady looked like she'd
Speaker 1: been through some ship. Since when a you curse like that?
Speaker 1: Sasha felt a pang of guilt at how easily the
Speaker 1: swear word had come to her mind. Then she felt really,
Speaker 1: really stupid. She was literally watching people die. She'd killed
Speaker 1: two human beings less than forty eight hours ago. What
Speaker 1: the fuck does cursing matter, but still the guilt was there.
Speaker 1: Perhaps what she felt was a betrayal of her past self,
Speaker 1: or maybe she was just dumb. Sasha shook it off.
Speaker 1: She tried to focus on the carnage. It was horrible,
Speaker 1: She knew that in a detached, academic sense. She couldn't
Speaker 1: quite feel the horror, though. It was as if shooting
Speaker 1: Darrell had opened up a great, gnawing hole inside her heart,
Speaker 1: and that hole had spread like a black film over
Speaker 1: her entire body. All her feelings seemed so distant now.
Speaker 1: She wanted to cry about Darrell. She wanted to cry
Speaker 1: about this. She wanted to cry for Susannah and Anne,
Speaker 1: left alone in that living hell of a kingdom. She
Speaker 1: wanted to cry for herself too, but she couldn't, and
Speaker 1: so she didn't. Instead, she sat and watched as the
Speaker 1: warrior gods of this strange city helped the martyrs earn
Speaker 1: their title. Sasha looked out at the citizens of Rolling Fuck.
Speaker 1: Most of the people she could see were crying, and
Speaker 1: even those who weren't looked shaken, horrified. The perpetual party
Speaker 1: atmosphere she'd come to associate with the city of Wheels
Speaker 1: was gone. It had been suspended to allow for pain.
Speaker 1: Sasha wanted to hurt with them, but instead she thought
Speaker 1: about the offer that man Jim had made. She thought
Speaker 1: about the squeaking sound of the razor blade ripping out
Speaker 1: of Roland's forearm. She'd seen the way he fought. She
Speaker 1: longed for the high that had come with the violence
Speaker 1: and the clinic, but she couldn't stand more of the
Speaker 1: guilt killing Darrell had brought her. I could be a medic,
Speaker 1: Sasha thought, Jim said so. She looked up to the
Speaker 1: screens again at the parade of death. She wasn't sure
Speaker 1: if any of the dead had been rolling Fox soldiers.
Speaker 1: It didn't look like it, But as she settled back
Speaker 1: in to watch, something glitched on the screens. The stream
Speaker 1: of faces sped up well past the point where she
Speaker 1: could focus on any of them. Then the floe stopped, sputtered,
Speaker 1: the picture glitched out, and then righted itself. Whatever algorithm
Speaker 1: handled the show eventually stabilized, and the individual images on
Speaker 1: each screen shrank to accommodate many many more people, a
Speaker 1: flood of the dead and moments from their lives. The
Speaker 1: nature of their deaths changed too. Most of the first
Speaker 1: waves seemed to come from a sudden burst of explosive detonations.
Speaker 1: But the explosions stopped and the dying continued, and whatever
Speaker 1: was killing the martyrs now moved too fast to be
Speaker 1: clearly seen. What's happening? She heard Manny ask, is something wrong? No,
Speaker 1: the old man said, that's just Rowland. Rowland. Forty five
Speaker 1: seconds after his feet hit dirt, Rowland was out of AMMO.
Speaker 1: He'd managed to do a tremendous amount of damage in
Speaker 1: that short span of time, decimating their mortar batteries with
Speaker 1: cluster rockets and clearing the martyrs away from their field
Speaker 1: guns with a mix of gas and fragmentation grenades. He'd
Speaker 1: emptied his machine gun and three long bursts, mostly aimed
Speaker 1: at the infantry who had been clustered behind the APC
Speaker 1: barricades when he landed. Then he'd taken to scavenging rifles
Speaker 1: from the dead and emptying those into targets of opportunity.
Speaker 1: By the one minute mark, Rowland's high brain estimated he'd
Speaker 1: killed or wounded close to a thousand men. The sheer
Speaker 1: ferocity of his initial assault sent the Kingdom's forces reeling
Speaker 1: and cleared a circle of ground around him. About two
Speaker 1: hundred meters wide. Roland finished gunning down the crew of
Speaker 1: a Patriot battery and ran for an abandoned anti tank
Speaker 1: rifle lying next to a pile of bodies. Bullets smacked
Speaker 1: into him from all sides, diversionary fire meant to distract
Speaker 1: him from the uparmored Mattis a PC that suddenly gunned
Speaker 1: its engine and barreled towards him. They think they can
Speaker 1: run me over, Roland realized with something like glee, so
Speaker 1: he slowed down, reducing his sprint to something like a
Speaker 1: normal human running speed, while the vehicle closed the gap
Speaker 1: between them. He jumped at the last moment, landed on
Speaker 1: the APEC's roof and punched a hole through the top
Speaker 1: armor with both of his fists. Then he gripped the
Speaker 1: ragged metal at the sides of the hole and tore
Speaker 1: the APC open. The smell of fear hid his nose
Speaker 1: as he tore through the concrete wall. The room held
Speaker 1: a dozen men, a mix of guards and officers. One
Speaker 1: man in the middle wore the stars of a general
Speaker 1: in the United States Army. Some of the soldiers screamed,
Speaker 1: a few opened fire, but the general just stood there
Speaker 1: while Rowland killed. He didn't even blink, No fear poured
Speaker 1: off him. It's our fault, the general said once they
Speaker 1: were the only men left alive in the room. This
Speaker 1: is all our fault, Rowland time. A bullet hit his
Speaker 1: face and Roland snapped back to reality. The men in
Speaker 1: the apec below him were dead. It looked as if
Speaker 1: he'd shredded them with his bare hands. But while he'd
Speaker 1: lost in a memory, two more a PC's had roared
Speaker 1: up and disgorged a dozen power armored soldiers. They shot
Speaker 1: him with big guns, weapons meant to hurt monsters. He
Speaker 1: avoided some of their rounds, but not most. Roland lost
Speaker 1: the better part of his right hand, a chunk of
Speaker 1: his skull in his left knee. It hurt, but that
Speaker 1: didn't stop him. He leapt off the Maddison. Soon he
Speaker 1: was among them, ripping off armored plates and shattering bones
Speaker 1: with his bare hands. The battle drugs poured into his
Speaker 1: brain and lit his synapses up like the New York Skyline.
Speaker 1: Roland let out a terrible whooping cry that was half
Speaker 1: laugh and half scream, and he tore into the men
Speaker 1: as they tried in vain to do him real harm.
Speaker 1: It took nineteen seconds to eliminate them all. As the
Speaker 1: last man dropped, Roland realized with some surprise that he
Speaker 1: could hear Jim's voice, distant but getting closer. His old
Speaker 1: friend was charging, screaming out war whoops, and firing those
Speaker 1: big dumb pistols. Then he heard the familiar crack of
Speaker 1: a Dragonov sniper rifle Topaz his rifle. He remembered it
Speaker 1: now the sound was as familiar to him as the
Speaker 1: voice of his own mother. Holy shit, Roland realized that
Speaker 1: for the first time in years, he could remember the
Speaker 1: sound of his mother's voice. Her name and face were
Speaker 1: still lost in memory, but all this violence was clearly
Speaker 1: knocking some things loose. He took a step back behind
Speaker 1: what of the intact a PCs to avoid a spray
Speaker 1: of heavy machine gun fire and take stock of the situation.
Speaker 1: Now that he focused, he could feel the hoofbeats of
Speaker 1: rolling Fox cavalry. He could sense that many of the
Speaker 1: city's infantry had charged out from their positions in Rock
Speaker 1: Creek to meet the martyrs in hand to hand combat.
Speaker 1: The Heavenly Kingdom was not in flight, not yet, but
Speaker 1: they would break soon. Roland knew it he could smell
Speaker 1: it in the air. Time to stop, now, time to
Speaker 1: let Schoffucker, Mike Topaz and the others finish the fight.
Speaker 1: He'd done enough, He knew he'd done enough, and yet
Speaker 1: the drugs. Even after just a few seconds out of
Speaker 1: direct combat, the high was starting to fade, and Roland
Speaker 1: wanted more. He thought about cracking another skull in his hand. Itched.
Speaker 1: He heard one of the martyrs open up with an
Speaker 1: automatic grenade launcher and thought about how good that gun
Speaker 1: would feel bucking against the meat of his shoulder. The
Speaker 1: man with the grenade launcher was close. Roland could close
Speaker 1: the distance between them and two maybe three seconds. No,
Speaker 1: you don't need to do this. Stop. Fewer people will
Speaker 1: die if you just, Roland charged Manny. Manny had seen
Speaker 1: nine people killed by bullets or bombs. He'd seen a
Speaker 1: good deal more fresh corpses in the aftermath of firefights.
Speaker 1: He had a strong stomach, and he was not easily
Speaker 1: distressed by gore. The opening stages of this battle and
Speaker 1: the war ritual had been unsettling, but not because of
Speaker 1: the violence that changed soon after Roland landed. He's just
Speaker 1: tearing people apart, Manny said, without really meaning to say
Speaker 1: anything at all. Donald Ferris replied with a grim nod.
Speaker 1: It's hard to watch. Nanny Azi admitted as an their
Speaker 1: dozen lives and did messily on the screens before them.
Speaker 1: It'll be over soon, though they can't take much more
Speaker 1: of this. I haven't seen any of your people die yet,
Speaker 1: Sasha said, is that abnormal? No. Donald's voice was grim.
Speaker 1: There will be a lot of injuries, but I don't
Speaker 1: expect Rolling Fuck will lose a single warrior, good, Sasha said,
Speaker 1: is it? Donald asked, of course, it's good. You silly fuck.
Speaker 1: Nana Yazzi snapped, that was the first time Manny could
Speaker 1: recall hearing her angry. I disagree, the old man grumbled.
Speaker 1: We're on a precipice here, the edge of a deep cliff.
Speaker 1: Every time this happens, we get a little closer to
Speaker 1: falling off. What do you mean, Manny asked, He means,
Speaker 1: Nana Yazzi replied with a bit of drunken slur to
Speaker 1: her voice. He doesn't trust the people of this city.
Speaker 1: He thinks they'll get a taste for war and this
Speaker 1: whole experiment will turn into a nightmare. You can't trust
Speaker 1: the dark, Donald Ferris insisted, and We're in the dark here,
Speaker 1: he waved out at the field and the hundreds of
Speaker 1: people watching the faces of the dead and tearful silence.
Speaker 1: Right now, we've managed to lash together a chain of
Speaker 1: rituals that keep them peaceful. How long can that last?
Speaker 1: Naniyazi glared at him, and then shifted her gaze to Nanny.
Speaker 1: She pointed a finger at Donald. He thinks we should
Speaker 1: have let your people die. I think we have a
Speaker 1: responsibility to intervene. I'm not saying we don't. Donald Ferris insisted,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying I've seen how this story ends. History
Speaker 1: may not repeat itself, but it does. Rhyme, pithy, Naniyazi said,
Speaker 1: But oh. She stopped mid sentence and stared out into
Speaker 1: the screens. Mannie looked back just in time to watch
Speaker 1: the flow of dead faces speed up again. The screens
Speaker 1: jerked and shuddered to accommodate the new flow. Once they adjusted,
Speaker 1: Mannie was shocked again at the violence on display. He
Speaker 1: saw men run through with lances, gutted by scimitars, burnt
Speaker 1: by napalm, and trampled under the spiked hoves of quadrufrats.
Speaker 1: Oh God, he moaned. Ah Yes, Naniyazi sighed, that would
Speaker 1: be the cavalry. It won't be much longer now they're
Speaker 1: here to finish the job. Rowland, the Knights of Rolling
Speaker 1: Fuck were a sight to see. Truly. It wasn't often
Speaker 1: that Roland came across something that registered as completely new
Speaker 1: to the deep, battered banks of his memory. But there
Speaker 1: was no deja vous here, no sense that he'd watched
Speaker 1: anything like it before. Rolling Fox riders worked in two
Speaker 1: and three person squads, mostly using a mix of hand grenades,
Speaker 1: small arms, flame throwers, and melee weapons for shock value.
Speaker 1: Their timing was exquisite. One hundred riders hit the martyrs
Speaker 1: at the same time. They didn't seem to have specific
Speaker 1: targets or goals beyond causing mayhem, but they did this expertly,
Speaker 1: spiking armored vehicles and field guns with white phosphorus charges
Speaker 1: and scattering any clusters of martyrs they could find. The
Speaker 1: woman Kashore rode past him, her face skinned and weeping
Speaker 1: blood as she lobbed a hand grenade towards a group
Speaker 1: of martyrs hunkered behind the shattered remains of a public restroom.
Speaker 1: She pulled a maqua wheedle with an iron trunk and
Speaker 1: gleaming obsidian blades free from her belt as her steed
Speaker 1: leapt over the burning wreckage of a jeep and bounded
Speaker 1: towards the survivors. Roland followed her, tearing a piece of
Speaker 1: rebar free from some rubble as he charged. The restrooms
Speaker 1: were at one end of what had once been a
Speaker 1: giant playground in a public park. It had been derelict
Speaker 1: for more than a decade, but the corpses of swing
Speaker 1: sets and remnants of slides were still visible. Several hundred
Speaker 1: of the martyrs had fallen back to this position, trying
Speaker 1: to create some sort of defensive line. Panic and mass
Speaker 1: death had robbed them of a lot of cohesion, but
Speaker 1: they still managed to pour a lot of fire into
Speaker 1: Roland and Cashori as they charged. A rocket propelled grenade
Speaker 1: hit the chest of her quadrifract and burst, ripping off
Speaker 1: one of the machine's legs and sending the Chrome Woman
Speaker 1: tumbling to the ground, gravel and rubble embedding itself into
Speaker 1: the red musculature of her bleeding face. Roland didn't stop
Speaker 1: for her. He charged ahead, absorbed a few dozen rounds
Speaker 1: of small arms fire, and dodged a handful of rocket
Speaker 1: propelled grenades. He hid a group of twenty three men
Speaker 1: clustered behind a long, still glass barricade and several heavy
Speaker 1: metal crates. These martyrs had been trying to get a
Speaker 1: trio of anti tank guns back into the fight. They
Speaker 1: gave up on that once Roland had closed to about
Speaker 1: twenty feet. One of them, an older man with a spine,
Speaker 1: shouted words of encouragement and charged forward, firing with a
Speaker 1: dozen of his men. These soldiers weren't wearing powered armor.
Speaker 1: They weren't good enough to hit more than one and
Speaker 1: twenty shots. They wore old, up cycled body armor. Only
Speaker 1: a few of them had bayonets. They presented no real threat.
Speaker 1: Twenty seconds n I can put every one of these
Speaker 1: fuckers down for the rest of the fight. No one
Speaker 1: needs to die. His hand twitched, the river of dopamine,
Speaker 1: and his synapses shrank to a babbling brook. Roland felt
Speaker 1: a craving rise. Maybe just a few more he was
Speaker 1: among them. Roland found that brave old fucker picked him
Speaker 1: up by the skull and used him as a flail
Speaker 1: until the bones of his face came loose and Roland's hands.
Speaker 1: He deployed the razor in his wrist and started slicing
Speaker 1: off hands and ears. He moved on to slashing tendons
Speaker 1: and muscles, and eventually just hacked at his enemies like
Speaker 1: a drunken butcher. One boy dropped his gun, tried to
Speaker 1: back away, and fell on his ass. As Roland stalked
Speaker 1: towards him, the protesters screamed and screamed. They swung sticks
Speaker 1: and tried to bash him with their shields, and he
Speaker 1: knocked their clumsy strikes aside and waded into the mass.
Speaker 1: Roland didn't even consider drawing a gun. He tore every
Speaker 1: fistful of human flesh, sent a wave of orgiastically bubbling
Speaker 1: through his brain. A young woman screamed and tried to run,
Speaker 1: and he grabbed her hair and pulled in the sound
Speaker 1: of her neck snapping almost made in shriek with joy, Please,
Speaker 1: said a different man, before Roland shattered his skull against
Speaker 1: the pavement and left up to chase down a trio
Speaker 1: of fleeing martyrs. He was back and in serlick, bloody
Speaker 1: and injured, an almost snowblind from the battle drugs. Roland
Speaker 1: shoved his way through the door and into the air
Speaker 1: raid shelter he'd already pulled a grenade free from his
Speaker 1: harness when he found himself face to face with a
Speaker 1: room full of women and children, old men and young boys, civilians,
Speaker 1: unarmed and with sudden shock, Roland realized he didn't care
Speaker 1: about that last part. His synapses screamed for more. Roland
Speaker 1: obliged them, My god, stop stop. He came back to
Speaker 1: himself and realized he was on the ground and locked
Speaker 1: into a pretty darn good half nelson. It took him
Speaker 1: a moment to realize that woman Kaushore was the one
Speaker 1: holding him. Oh, he said, what the fuck man? Roland
Speaker 1: looked around. None of the martyrs near him were still standing.
Speaker 1: It was hard even for his hindbrain to identify how
Speaker 1: many people had fallen around him. He guessed south of
Speaker 1: a hundred, but not far south. The number was shocking.
Speaker 1: It implied a longer blackout than any of the others.
Speaker 1: What was scarier was the sheer violence evident in these
Speaker 1: men's death. Most of them were in more than two pieces.
Speaker 1: Are you not flip out? If I let go? Roland
Speaker 1: shook his head and Cashorey released him. He turned around,
Speaker 1: still seated, and looked at the young woman. She was
Speaker 1: filthy with grime and blood, some of it her own.
Speaker 1: Her skinless face wept red. But even so he could
Speaker 1: still see the judgment in her eyes. That was not
Speaker 1: fucking necessary. She said, I'm sorry, I Roland, it was skufucker.
Speaker 1: Mike Topaz trailed behind him at a sizeable distance, sweeping
Speaker 1: the field with a rifle. Roland tried to catch his eye.
Speaker 1: He avoided Roland's gaze for a second or two, but
Speaker 1: then they connected and she stared at him with those big, brown,
Speaker 1: tear stained eyes. This isn't what I wanted, Rowland, This
Speaker 1: isn't what we said we were fighting for. This is
Speaker 1: just butchery. He felt angry at her blind rage that
Speaker 1: warred with his love. Of course, it's butchery, he screamed.
Speaker 1: The world is built by butcher's dude, kashore He slapped
Speaker 1: him hard, and Roland came back to himself, scofucker. Mike
Speaker 1: was closer now. Roland looked for Topaz and found him.
Speaker 1: He was closer to and looked worried, but he didn't
Speaker 1: say anything. Is Roland all right? Mike asked Kashouri. Was
Speaker 1: he hit? Sure, But that's not the problem, Kushorey said,
Speaker 1: he just went bug funk on like a company of
Speaker 1: those guys, ripped them apart with his bare hands. It's
Speaker 1: a fucking relapse, said skullfucker Mike. He knelt down in
Speaker 1: front of Roland and put a hand on his shoulder. Buddy,
Speaker 1: he said, it's done. They're starting to run whole army.
Speaker 1: You'll be routed in a few minutes. You just sit
Speaker 1: here and catch your breath and routed. Roland looked around
Speaker 1: and realized his hands were shaking. He felt a vast,
Speaker 1: throbbing emptiness in his synapses. He realized that the emptiness
Speaker 1: was always there, and had been for as long as
Speaker 1: he could remember. Most days he hid it under a
Speaker 1: haze of narcotics, But now that he'd had it filled
Speaker 1: for just a minute, it's emptiness hurt like an amputated limb.
Speaker 1: He looked out and saw that, yes, skullfucker Mike was wrecked.
Speaker 1: Several pockets of Martyr still held out, but the bulk
Speaker 1: of the vanguard was either dead or fleeing for the
Speaker 1: line of transports and technicals that stretched back to the Brazos.
Speaker 1: It felt like the rest of the army had started
Speaker 1: the slow process of halting and reversing its advance. The
Speaker 1: Kingdom had decided to pull back. Are you done or not,
Speaker 1: Roland asked an evil voice in the back of his head.
Speaker 1: If you're not done, if you want more, you'd better
Speaker 1: go get it. Roland leaned back. He looked from skullfucker
Speaker 1: Mike took a shore and finally to Topaz. Then he
Speaker 1: reached behind him, grabbed a busted rifle he could use
Speaker 1: as a club, and stood up Roland. No, skullfucker, Mike
Speaker 1: started to say. Roland didn't hear the rest. He bolted
Speaker 1: off as fast as he could run in the direction
Speaker 1: of the fleeing martyrs. Sasha it was amazing how much
Speaker 1: she could tell about the course of the battle just
Speaker 1: from watching the faces of its casualties. The pace of
Speaker 1: the killing and escalate it to a certain level, and
Speaker 1: then started to slowly fall. More and more of the
Speaker 1: men died with their backs to the enemy running. Sasha
Speaker 1: guessed that meant the army, or at least a lot
Speaker 1: of it, had started to break. The pace of death
Speaker 1: slowed to a trickle. Well. Then Donald Ferris grumbled, it
Speaker 1: seems like that's more or less settled. I'm going to
Speaker 1: get us another round. I think we've all eaten enough guilt. Father,
Speaker 1: He stopped, his jaw dropped. Oh no. Sasha turned back
Speaker 1: to the screen to see that the roll of the
Speaker 1: dead had started to increase again. These men were running too,
Speaker 1: but most of them weren't dying to ranged weaponry. They
Speaker 1: were being grabbed from behind, ripped apart, or club to
Speaker 1: death by something moving far too fast for human eyes
Speaker 1: to focus on. Roland Manny said in a dull voice
Speaker 1: filled with sorrow. Sasha scanned the faces of her table mates.
Speaker 1: Manny looked almost overwhelmed with guilt. His eyes were watery,
Speaker 1: and he just kept shaking his head and muttering to himself.
Speaker 1: Nanny Yazzi's mouth was closed, her face looked tight and
Speaker 1: frozen in horror. Donald Ferris was quite clearly furious. His
Speaker 1: face was so red. Sasha worried his heart might give out,
Speaker 1: and yet she felt nothing. That's curious, isn't it. Sasha
Speaker 1: could remember how angry she'd gotten as a girl when
Speaker 1: she read some story about anti Christian brutality in Turkey
Speaker 1: or Illinois. She remembered being horrified by the execution she
Speaker 1: had witnessed, but she could only picture her emotional state
Speaker 1: and those moments from a great distance, as if she
Speaker 1: were staring at it through the fogged up lens of
Speaker 1: a telescope. Why am I not angry? Why am I
Speaker 1: not horrified? Her concern over this fact actually generated a
Speaker 1: stronger emotional reaction than anything happening out on that battlefield.
Speaker 1: Sasha stared out at the cameras and the continuing parade
Speaker 1: of violence. She heard Manny cursing under his breath. She
Speaker 1: heard Nana Yazi fight back a sob, but Sasha felt nothing,
Speaker 1: save perhaps a bit of jealousy. Rowland, the scene out
Speaker 1: by the Brasos felt less like a battlefield and more
Speaker 1: like a playground. This might be the highest I've ever been,
Speaker 1: he thought, as he broke a man's neck with the
Speaker 1: back of his hand. Bullets whizzed by as a few
Speaker 1: of the braver soldiers tried to cover the retreat of
Speaker 1: their comrades, most of them, even the drivers, had abandoned
Speaker 1: their transports. Hundreds of men were already wading into the river,
Speaker 1: tearing off their armor and tossing aside their weapons as
Speaker 1: they plunged in. The Heavenly Kingdom's army would not rally
Speaker 1: any time soon. A martyr turned and drew his knife
Speaker 1: in a feeble attempt at resistance. Roland caved in the
Speaker 1: man's stern hum with a fist and squashed his heart
Speaker 1: like a june bug. Ten meters ahead, he saw three
Speaker 1: soldiers preparing to make their stand behind an overturned flatbed truck.
Speaker 1: As he ran, Roland grabbed at his scarded rifle off
Speaker 1: the ground, a Thompson submachine gun. He realized it didn't
Speaker 1: feel like a reproduction either. Roland brought the gun up
Speaker 1: to his shoulder. The Thompson gun bucked in his hand.
Speaker 1: Roland laughed as he danced through the Charnel house that
Speaker 1: had once been a forward operating bay. Most of the
Speaker 1: National guardsmen were dead, but his nose told him one
Speaker 1: of them was still in the game. Roland turned past
Speaker 1: a hesco and saw the young man propped half up
Speaker 1: against a pile of sandbags. The boy held a hand
Speaker 1: to a bleeding hole in his gut. His black face
Speaker 1: was bloodless, pale, and young. So young. Roland didn't know
Speaker 1: if he'd ever seen a soldier who looked that young.
Speaker 1: There was something familiar about the boy's face, Rowland, the
Speaker 1: kid said, and recognition dawned in Roland's eyes, and then
Speaker 1: he was back. He was about fifty yards further ahead
Speaker 1: than he'd been before he blacked out. The Thompson gun
Speaker 1: was still in his hand, pointed at a man twelve
Speaker 1: yards to his left who was scrambling to get a
Speaker 1: wire guided rocket launcher into a firing position. Roland put
Speaker 1: a bullet through his brain. He turned past the burning
Speaker 1: wreckage of a semi truck. A dozen bullets impact at
Speaker 1: his chest inside. Then three martyrs charged him, their bayonets fixed.
Speaker 1: The hit wasn't bad, nothing but a flesh wound schofucker.
Speaker 1: Mike looked worse. He lost most of his left arm.
Speaker 1: Topaz had in three rounds to the dome, but she
Speaker 1: was still firing her dragon off. Roland's mind stretched into
Speaker 1: the city of Dallas around them. There were a lot
Speaker 1: of men coming their way, but those men were mostly
Speaker 1: police swat officers, nothing substantial, no one who could stop
Speaker 1: them from getting this bomb where it needed to go.
Speaker 1: Roland screamed as he broke his Thompson gun over the
Speaker 1: head of another martyr. Then he reeled back and dropped
Speaker 1: the gun. That last memory had felt different, like it
Speaker 1: unlocked something Roland shook his head. The last martyr in
Speaker 1: front of him broke and ran. Roland didn't even think
Speaker 1: to chase him. His head hurt in a way he
Speaker 1: couldn't remember it ever hurting before. What the hell is
Speaker 1: going on? It had all started the second he'd thought
Speaker 1: about the bomb. As small as nukes go, just about
Speaker 1: one megaton. It matches the ones that fought Leonarwood. The
Speaker 1: Guardian already released the hacked documents showing the government considered
Speaker 1: bombing several of the separatist camps. I think we can
Speaker 1: trust the American people to put two and two together,
Speaker 1: Jim smiled. Roland did not. This was his plan, but
Speaker 1: he didn't like it. He knew, though, that it was
Speaker 1: the only way forward for the revolution. There has to
Speaker 1: be another way, said schullfucker Mike. This feels wrong, really
Speaker 1: really wrong. The floodgates of Roland's mind opened, and a
Speaker 1: tidal wave of memory swept him away. He dropped to
Speaker 1: his knees. The martyrs around him continued to flee, too,
Speaker 1: shocked and awed to take advantage of his vulnerability. The
Speaker 1: battle drugs were gone now, or at least he couldn't
Speaker 1: feel them anymore. Hundreds of memories assaulted his consciousness thousands.
Speaker 1: For the first time in years, Roland knew who he'd been,
Speaker 1: who he was again. I'm back, Roland stood. He took
Speaker 1: one halting step forward, and then another, and then he
Speaker 1: leaned against the frame of a broken a PC for
Speaker 1: a little while as he pictured his mother's face and
Speaker 1: voice for the first time in years. He wanted to sob,
Speaker 1: but there was no time. He knew who he was now,
Speaker 1: and he knew what he was bound to do if
Speaker 1: he stayed this way. Roland's gents wouldn't allow that, so
Speaker 1: he trudged forward until he found the right tool, a
Speaker 1: handheld grenade launcher clutched in the dead hands of a martyr.
Speaker 1: He took the weapon and sat cross legged and the
Speaker 1: blood soaked Texas dirt. Roland looked up at the sky
Speaker 1: one last time and allowed himself a long moment to
Speaker 1: remember his parents and his brother, and the day he
Speaker 1: and Topaz had first met. And then he closed his
Speaker 1: eyes and pulled the trigger. Manny Nanni Yazzi, Sasha, Donald Ferris,
Speaker 1: and Manny had all rushed to a transport as soon
Speaker 1: as Roland's face showed up on the screen. It seems
Speaker 1: the drones either didn't know or didn't care enough to
Speaker 1: separate dead friends from dead foes. Maybe that was the
Speaker 1: point Nani Yazzi drove. It took about six minutes for
Speaker 1: the shiny green jeep to make its way over the
Speaker 1: broken roads and towards the side of the battle. No
Speaker 1: one spoke. They reached the battlefield, there so many dead people.
Speaker 1: Manny had seen a lot of carnage in his life,
Speaker 1: but nothing like this. The stinches of burning flesh, opened bowels,
Speaker 1: and burning fuel were so overwhelming they almost knocked him down.
Speaker 1: Donald Ferris and Nana Yazzi looked just as queasy. Only
Speaker 1: Sasha whether the sights and smells with calm. She stayed
Speaker 1: focused enough to spot skullfucker Mike and the mess and
Speaker 1: direct Nana Yazzi his way. Rolling Fox soldiers were out
Speaker 1: in force. They stalked through the killing fields in groups
Speaker 1: of four or five, searching for survivors or just looking
Speaker 1: for loot. Mike stood with Topaz and Cashore and a
Speaker 1: couple of chromed Manny didn't recognize. Most of them were
Speaker 1: seated by a handful of large metal crates in the
Speaker 1: center of what had once been a large playground. Oh god,
Speaker 1: the dead men here had been torn apart. There was
Speaker 1: so much blood, more than Manny had ever seen. It
Speaker 1: sluiced around on the concrete like some sort of macab
Speaker 1: kittie pool. The jeep came to a wet stop in
Speaker 1: front of the group. The act of breakings into spray
Speaker 1: of gore out across Skullfucker Mike's legs. Hey, he said,
Speaker 1: what are you all doing here? Rowland? Manny said, what
Speaker 1: happened to Rowland? Mike looked confused. Topaz raised his head
Speaker 1: up to look out at them. Many was surprised to
Speaker 1: see tears rolling down his face. His lip trembled a bit,
Speaker 1: but when he spoke there was steel and fury in
Speaker 1: his voice. He decided to keep killing. I'm sure he's
Speaker 1: still killing now. No, Manny said, he's dead, or that's
Speaker 1: what the drone said. We have to find him. Get
Speaker 1: out of that seat, Mike said to Nanny Yazzie, I'm
Speaker 1: driving in an instant Topaz. His tears stopped, and before
Speaker 1: Many could say anything, Topaz hopped into the back seat
Speaker 1: of the jeep. Fast. Topaz told Skullfucker Mike as he
Speaker 1: took over from Nanny Yazzi go very fast. It didn't
Speaker 1: take long to find him. Roland's route through the army
Speaker 1: was painted in red. Hundreds of dead men, maybe more
Speaker 1: than a thousand, made a clear path with their corpses.
Speaker 1: That path didn't end until they were almost at the
Speaker 1: brazos and they saw where Roland had fallen. Roland's armored
Speaker 1: body was splayed out limp next to the carcass of
Speaker 1: an old semi truck. There were two very dead men
Speaker 1: directly in front of him, but neither of them looked
Speaker 1: to have done him in. Roland hadn't gone down to
Speaker 1: enemy fire. He jammed a very large gun in his
Speaker 1: mouth and blown the top off of his head. To
Speaker 1: all signs and to all logic, he looked dead. Donald
Speaker 1: Ferris shook his head and muttered something. Sasha just stared.
Speaker 1: Nana Yazzi put her hand on Manny's shoulder. He was,
Speaker 1: she started to say, but she was interrupted by Roland.
Speaker 1: As he lifted his ruined head up to look at them.
Speaker 1: His eyes were still unfocused. Blood drooled down his nose,
Speaker 1: out of his mouth, and down from the gaping exit
Speaker 1: wound in his forehead. He spat out several teeth Manny
Speaker 1: saw daylight through his skull, but still Roland was able
Speaker 1: to speak. How the funk are you people, He asked,
Speaker 1: so m o o